Kuzul

Collectively as a professional fraternity, sports journalists seem to think they are an extremely bright and witty bunch. Whether engaging in snarky Twitter wars with perceived imbecile readers or not allowing comments on their pristine works of art (looking in your direction, Mike Lupica), they seem to sit high atop their soapbox completely invulnerable of public criticism and immersed in their superior infallibility.

However, Derek Jeter seems to have them scrambling for bold font letters whenever he says something outside of his stale vanilla routine. Yet he always ends up playing them like a fiddle.

Self-absorbed jerk and Lance Armstrong fanboy Rick Reilly recently sat down with the Yankee shortstop for a hokey segment titled “Hit and Miss” for ESPN.  It’s basically a rapid-fire question-answer game of Reilly’s that’s supposed to conjure up revealing and unexpected responses.

Reilly zapped out the normal fluff that Jeter is used to, swatting it away until one question-and-answer exchange shook the world.

Reilly relayed to Jeter that “Peyton Manning changed teams this season after 14 seasons with one team. Could you see yourself doing that?”

“Well, if I wanted to keep playing, yes,” Jeter replied. “It’s a business. People forget that.”

Of course, he’s right.  Baseball, like every professional sport, is a ruthless business that circulates around cash money.  But, we’re supposed to actually believe that Mr. Yankee is going to play for another team?

First of all, Peyton Manning is a football player who controls a team’s entire offense. Jeter is one of eight other daily starters who bring different attributes to the game. Yet in Reilly’s defense, I see the correlation revolving around the veteran star with one lone solitary tenure angle.

Two years ago when Jeter was a “free agent,” he said he was looking at other options if he and the Yanks couldn’t come to contract agreement. To no one’s surprise, it was all a ruse and Jeter signed again with the only home he’s ever known. And to make the fabrication more solid, it was reported that no teams contacted Jeter. Even he revealed he never even picked up the phone.

But the media has a short memory in certain aspects and decided to dangle a tempting morsel in our faces, hoping for blind bites.

All in all, Jeter knows what he’s doing.  At the end of next season, he’ll be right back at the bargaining table with Brian Cashman and his money purveyors angling for a new deal. If Derek declares his undying and eternal commitment to the Bombers, the front office has him right where they want him: With absolutely no wiggle room. 

Can’t you just imagine the Cheshire cat grin on Cashman‘s face after hearing Jeter’s undying love for everything with the Yankee brand from here to eternity?

It appears the delicate geniuses with their “Press” hats tried to pull the wool over our eyes as if we were dense.  But in the end, all of us (minus the mouth-breathers) realize the sensational headlines about him wearing another uniform are a joke, including Jeter.

On Friday when hearing about the hoopla regarding his statement, Jeter once again captivated the media with words of wisdom.

“Man, you guys must be bored”

Derek, you would be too if you knew EVERYTHING.

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Remember when most fans were split between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners on who got the better deal in the Michael Pineda-Jesus Montero swap?

Remember when Yankees fans watched Pineda get season-ending surgery before Game 1 and then the answer became pretty clear?

Remember when Pineda was arrested for drunk driving while rehabbing in Tampa and the answer became a no-brainer?

Unfortunately, I remember all these things.

In a powerful attempt to rival Carl Pavano’s claim to having the worst beginning ever to a Yankees pitching career, young Michael Pineda is certainly holding his own.

During his 2:30 a.m. SUV ride near Steinbrenner field, the Yankees spring training facility, late Monday night, the 23-year-old completely neglected the fact that he had forgotten to turn on his headlights. 

At 3 a.m., he didn’t realize he had his lights on. Let that sink in.

In fact, according to the New York Post, in addition to forgetting that he needed to be able to see the road, he was traveling, so wrote the arresting officer, at “a high rate of speed and weaving from side to side, crossing the lane markers, failing to maintain [a] single lane of travel.”

Beautiful.

The New York Post also reported Pineda’s version of events:

Pineda, 23, told The Post he’d knocked back just “three or four” whiskeys with cranberry juice over “three or four” hours.

Sounds believable, right?

That, sir, is grade-A crap.

Pineda is 6’7″ and weighs in at 260 pounds; I highly doubt that alibi would hold up, even with Lionel Hutz cross-examining him.

While Pineda continues to dig a deeper hole for himself, Jesus Montero is batting .261 with 12 HR and 46 RBI for Seattle this year. Sounds decent, right?   

Read it again, because he’s outhitting Chris Stewart and Russell Martin.

Even more crazy is that the guy who couldn’t catch (That’s why he was traded: He didn’t have a position.) is the catcher in the Emerald City!

So, who got the better of this deal again?

Follow @brianbuck13 Appears on Sporting Sarcasm

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After Melky Cabrera’s shoddy webmaster skills died a timely death, I started thinking about past ruses of steroid explanation. 

Instant comedy seems to be born every time a baseball player is accused or caught red-handed in using performance-enhancing drugs.  Some dopey anecdote is concocted, and the authorities and the fans are supposed to blindly buy it.

So, without further adieu, here is the first installment of “Great Moments in Steroid Scandals.”

“Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids, period. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never.”

You remember that one, right? 

Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro looked into the eyes of Congress, wagged his sanctimonious finger and affirmed to the world he wasn’t dirty.

His adamancy spoke volumes, as his performance in Washington was actually worthy of Tinseltown.  The only enhancers Raffy ever took were Viagra pills—and he was paid to tell us that.

But only 135 days after Palmeiro’s fire-and-brimstone speech of innocence, he tested positive for the powerful and MLB-banned supplement stanozolol.  Subsequently, he was suspended for 10 games (the ban at the time in 2005).

So, let’s try this again.

“I have never intentionally used steroids. Never. Ever. Period. Ultimately, although I never intentionally put a banned substance into my body, the independent arbitrator ruled that I had to be suspended under the terms of the program.”

After this statement of desperation, he was mum to the public about his positive test.  But ESPN soon learned that Palmeiro, when talking to an MLB arbitration panel, threw his teammate Miguel Tejada under a massive bus.  He claimed Tejada had given him a dreaded B-12 pill that logically must have been tainted.

With Tejada having his steroid transgressions as well, the case simply looked like a juiced guy trying to save his hide on the laurels of another juiced guy.

Because both guys were dirty, their stories weren’t believable, and the mystery B-12 pill never did any real damage.  Sure, Tejada was convicted of perjury for lying to Congress about Raffy’s checkered steroid past, but it was a minor violation that did no real damage.

As for Palmeiro and that completely legal pill that somehow caused a positive test for an extremely dangerous steroid, well he’s sticking to his story.

In 2006, he told the Baltimore Sun, “Yes sir, that’s what happened. It’s not a story; it’s the reality of what happened,” and “I said what I said before Congress because I meant every word of it.”

I apologize for asking such a silly question, but if Palmeiro regularly took B-12 pills, then why didn’t he buy his own pills?

Follow @brianbuck13  Appeared originally on Sporting Sarcasm

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