What We're In For

If Erik's post below makes me laugh at its veracity, this makes me want to slit my wrists, eat a shotgun, and hang myself, all in one swift cloud of death.

One of my favorite things is when people say that backlash against Jeter is "irrational." He's a hall-of-famer who's been a great hitter and a middling-to-terrible fielder. "Clutch" is the most overrated bullshit laziness ever, and the McCarver (and New York media) tongue-baths are enough to create a backlash.

But this? The Yankees haven't even even won the ALCS yet, and we're already being exposed to "unforgettable photos of Jeter off the field"? Not for any other player ever, but for Jeter before the Yankees even get to the World Series?

Hey - Sports Illustrated!!!!!

FUCK. YOU.

The First and Probably Last Time I'll Do This

He should end up in the Hall of Fame. NOT as a "great shortstop," NOT because he's a Yankee, NOT because he's "clutch," but because, when you strip away all of the fellating, all of the McCarver-isms, all of the obnoxious insistence from Yankee fans that he is baseball Jesus, when you strip all of that away, at the end of the day, he was an excellent, and maybe even great (though not one of "the" greats), hitter.

That's all I'll say about that.

Diego Maradona to Coach Argentina

If this report (in Portuguese) is true, then Diego Maradona is going to be the new coach of the Argentine national men's soccer team (and as I write, it's now confirmed in English, here). It's daring and bold, to say the least, and no doubt a major PR move, guaranteed to get Argentina completely wound up about their team in a way they haven't been since Maradona was on the national team. He is an individual whose popularity is rivaled only by Evita. Imagine if Derek Jeter were a national hero rather than just a Yankee fan idol (with Jeffrey Maier as the Hand of God), and you only begin to get into the hero-worship of Maradona. When I was in Argentina, I seriously saw a soccer game on TV which was split-screen: on the left was the actual game, and on the right was a camera focusing on Maradona (in the stands that day) the entire game, just to capture his reactions.

This will be interesting, to say the least. Among other things, Maradona is a former coke fiend with an explosive temper whose most basic life events make national headlines in Argentina, where the population holds him as highly in Argentina as Evita. He could be great, though I hope not; I like him about as much as I like Jeter, and his fans are perhaps even more obnoxious (Maradona is not, never was, and never will be the greatest soccer player; that was Pele. You'd think a goal total of 307 vs. 1280 would be enough to settle that). I just don't see this working out, and if it's as embarassing for both the men's team and Maradona as I hope it will be, then this should be fun. However, if Maradona is successful, this will be really ugly, and Argentine fans will become even more intolerable than they already are (which is really hard to even begin to imagine).

...UPDATE: Given the coach and the player, guess we're virtually guaranteed of seeing this again...

My First Baseball Post of 2008

The only way my first baseball post of 2008 could be better would be if it were theorizing about the chances of a Cleveland Indians repeat. However, as they discovered a strange new hell for me and countless others to suffer through last year (3-1?? YOU COULDN'T WIN ONE MORE FUCKING GAME?????), I'll have to settle for posting about Mr. Clutchiosity himself. A new study that evaluates defensive studies based on statistics confirms what many baseball fans who actually use their heads to THINK have always known: Derek Jeter's defense sucks.

While it's always fun to add to the arsenal of arguments against frothing Jeter fans ("look at his clutchness! But he's a captain! World Series! Clutch hits. clutch Clutch CLUTCH!!!!!!ONE!!!!111!!!!), I generally stay out of the fray because trying to convince Yankee fans that Jeter is not, in fact, the second coming, is like trying to convince my mother-in-law that Lula is not the devil - it's just not going to happen.

However, I can't help but jump in this time. Winter often provides us with a respite from the Yankeedolatry, and the first violent Yankee freakout each spring is like the sun breaking through again. And the sun has broken out, thanks to the New York Post's absolute freakout over this statistical, reasoned study. Refusing to believe a bunch of "professors" at some good "university" like "Penn," New Yorkers (and the Post) fall back on a bunch of typically arrogant-yet-whiny "what are they smoking"/"look at his character!!!!"/"But he's the CAPTAIN"/"YOU'RE WRONG YOU'RE WRONG I KNOW WHAT'S REAL YOUR PANTS ARE ON FIRE STOP YOUR LIES MISTER POOPIE HEAD!!!!" type arguments.

Who needs statistics when you have such STRONG arguments as to Jeter's greatness? In some ways, die-hard Yankee fans of this type (and there are Yankee fans who actually do follow stats and are aware that nobody is perfect, even if they are few) really remind me of the current Republican administration and its followers - "statistics" and "data" must be ignored at all costs if they actually put your sanctity and sanity in question.

(And as the guys at Fire Joe Morgan say, "Although I've learned nothing yet about this junky "science" study and of course I will learn nothing further by reading the rest of the article (thank you, Post!)." So for an actual explanation of the ratings system, see this article, via dday in this comment thread).