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="bmfc1":hzgo3c8s]Jeter is with Wright, who played a meaningless game after hurting his toe on the day after he drove in the winning runs, but Jeter is the beacon. Pathetic.[/quote:hzgo3c8s]
When Wright took that walk back to the dugout after grounding out the third time, and saw only one set of gimpy footprints?
That was Jeter, carrying him.
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metirish
Mar 22 2009 01:02 PM
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Ken Rosenthal will not be left out of the fun here. At an event in Compton for MLB's RBI program Jeter was present.
Erikk Aldridge, the event's moderator, asked Derek Jeter.
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"What did your folks instill in you?" |
| ]"Someone is always more talented than you, but there's no reason someone should outwork you."
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Jaws literally dropped as Jeter spoke on the eve of Team USA's semifinal against Japan in the World Baseball Classic.
And that was just the press guys reacting to The Beacon.
[url=http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9365754/Team-USA-members-reach-out-to-youths]Jaws Dropping[/url]
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G-Fafif
Mar 22 2009 02:00 PM
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Sounds like reporter's pants were dropping, too.
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cooby
Mar 22 2009 08:33 PM
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At my son's urging, I watched a bit of this tournament for the first time tonight, fully expecting after reading all these comments that Jeter would b e batting about .800 with 10 HRs and 20 RBIs.
What a disappointment!
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metirish
Mar 22 2009 08:39 PM
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I know Cooby . I would hate to be a MFY for several reasons but one reason is having to watch Jeter ground out endlessly to SS .
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Mar 22 2009 09:04 PM
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Someone tell The Beacon that's not Yao Ming playing first base.
Why does he hate freedom so much?
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Mar 22 2009 09:20 PM
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We need to score five times before Jeter comes up again.
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Edgy DC
Mar 22 2009 09:24 PM
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I'm inexplicably blacked out and following by Gameday.
I really wanted to see Darvish.
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Mar 22 2009 09:26 PM
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Well that's it.
Thanks for destroying America, Jeter.
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GYC
Mar 22 2009 09:48 PM
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Derek Jeter is a terrorist. He was trained by the best; one of his own teammates flew a plane into a building.
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G-Fafif
Mar 23 2009 04:22 AM
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The 2009 World Baseball Classic is forever sanctified by Captain Derek Jeter's grace in the face of defeat, a posture he has perfected so many times in the glare of a spotlight that has glowed around him since a magical night in November 2001 when he showed a nation how to handle disappointment with majesty, with aplomb, with the class only an authentic winner knows in losing. Now he has demonstrated to an entire planet what it means to Lose Like Derek Jeter. We are blessed for having witnessed it.
Some other team representing some other country will hold the title of WBC champion. But the real winner of this tournament, of this planet, of our shared celestial existence is Derek Sanderson Jeter. When Japan or Korea hoists a trophy tonight at Dodger Stadium, let the trophy bear his name, a sport's humble acknowledgment that it and its transitory results are but a shadow cast by he who is now and will forever be known as The Beacon.
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Mar 23 2009 05:28 AM
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="GYC":2g5a1hgs]Derek Jeter is a terrorist. He was trained by the best; one of his own teammates flew a plane into a building.[/quote:2g5a1hgs]
Way to bring it.
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metirish
Mar 23 2009 06:38 AM
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="John Cougar Lunchbucket":32pjwupp]="GYC":32pjwupp]Derek Jeter is a terrorist. He was trained by the best; one of his own teammates flew a plane into a building.[/quote:32pjwupp]
Way to bring it.[/quote:32pjwupp]
I didn't get that for a minute....good one
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Edgy DC
Mar 23 2009 06:57 AM
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Derek Jeter, he taught us how to win. He teaches us how to lose.
Someday, before this is all over, he will teach us how to tie.
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MFS62
Mar 23 2009 07:54 AM
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Folks, all of your barbs were more on the mark than Jeter's horrible throw in the ninth inning last night. What made the moment even better was the two headed monster of Miller/Morgan explanining how Jeter set his feet before he threw.
Later
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Edgy DC
Mar 23 2009 08:26 AM
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It strikes me that, as Jeter's game fades, the need to write him into morality plays will only increase:
<blockquote>JETER SHOWS WRIGHT WAY
Kevin Kiernan
New York Post
Last updated: 7:01 am
March 21, 2009
Posted: 1:46 am
March 21, 2009
LOS ANGELES This is a world stage, even if most American fans don't quite get the World Baseball Classic. On that stage yesterday at timeless Dodger Stadium sat Derek Jeter and David Wright, two New York guys. They sat side by side in uniform during the Team USA press conference, just as they have played side by side at short and third.
In New York they are always center stage with their own teams, the Yankees and Mets, though never really together. Even at the All-Star Game last year at Yankee Stadium, they represented their leagues. (Me: That's notably odd how?)
Here, though, for a few weeks, they are true teammates.
Watching the byplay between the two yesterday, the smiles, the inside jokes, the fumbling with the headphones used for translating questions, you couldn't help but get the idea that Jeter was passing the torch to Wright. Not the baseball torch, that's a much different story. Jeter was up there doing the right thing. He was having fun, enjoying the moment, carrying himself in a respectful way and, here's the key, always putting winning first in every comment.
Jeter is the mentor and Wright is the student, taking in all he can for the future. There is a way to handle yourself when you are center stage in New York. Obviously, Alex Rodriguez, despite being in the same clubhouse as Jeter, has never quite gotten it.
Wright, who will start at third and said his injured left big toe is "100 percent," came much more emotionally equipped to handle all this. He is using this WBC experience to grow.
This is Jeter's second time around the WBC block. Tomorrow could be the last game for Team USA, which plays Japan. Roy Oswalt, not Jake Peavy, is scheduled to be the starting pitcher. Adam Dunn will be back in right. Mark DeRosa will play first.
Win and Team USA goes to the championship game on Monday. Lose and the players go back to spring training.
"The first time around, I don't think anyone knew what to expect," Jeter said of the WBC. "Then once you had the opportunity to go out there and play and wear the uniform, represent your country, and be around the guys, you realized what an honor it was. And that's the reason I'm here this time. It's not to get out of spring training for two or three weeks.
"It's to come out here and represent our country and win a championship here."
Jeter's defensive range has been shaky in the tournament (Me: That's notably odd how?), but he insisted he will be ready for the season despite splitting time with Jimmy Rollins at short.
"Even when this tournament is over with, we will have a week to 10 days when we get back home," he explained.
For Wright, his game-winning hit against Puerto Rico added another element of success.
"That would be a memory that, for me, lasts a lifetime," he said.
Jeter said the semifinal against Japan is not revenge game for the Americans, even though Japan won the first WBC.
"I never try to look at things as revenge. Even if we had won that first tournament, this time, you're still trying to win. It's different than the last tournament, and this group here is trying to win."
As Jeter spoke, Wright nodded his head in agreement, listening carefully to every word.</blockquote>Unwritten is that, outside of Chipper Jones (who stunk and then bolted after straining an oblique), the two of them have been two of the more disappointing players in the US lineup.
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metsmarathon
Mar 23 2009 08:50 AM
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="MFS62":3qf4gua7]Folks, all of your barbs were more on the mark than Jeter's horrible throw in the ninth inning last night. What made the moment even better was the two headed monster of Miller/Morgan explanining how Jeter set his feet before he threw.
Later[/quote:3qf4gua7]
well, you see, it totally wasn't jeters fault that he threw the ball away. the japanese guy was just so fast that he forced jeter to air mail the throw. no reasonable competent shortstop could've made that play against such a mercurial opponent! it was darned near unfair that the scorer found himself obligated to award the error to the faultless wonder.
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metirish
Mar 23 2009 09:04 AM
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Kiernan's article is even worse than Filip Bondy's today , al though both are of a similar vein.
Like David Wright and Derek Jeter, we should think World of WBC
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LOS ANGELES - It wasn't supposed to matter. The World Baseball Classic was just this silly tournament getting in the way of spring training, disrespecting all those precious hamstring stretches that traditionally define America's staid, verdant baseball spring.
But David Wright put on the uniform again Sunday, ignored the throbbing toe and tried to avoid running into Davey Johnson. With Evan Longoria now on the U.S. roster, the manager had another option at third base for this semifinal game if Wright wanted out of the lineup with his cracked big toenail.
"If the foot starts swelling up, let me know," Johnson told Wright when he caught up to him.
"Skip, I'm fine," Wright answered.
Nothing against Longoria, but Wright wanted to play in the worst way. He had his reasons, starting with the love of a fresh challenge. And there was that other thing - the feeling some athletes get when they finally have the chance to play for country, not just for money.
"I'm ready to go," Wright said before the U.S. fell to Japan, 9-4, before 43,630 at Dodger Stadium. "It's an honor to wear this uniform."
Then he went out and it seemed early on as if every ball and every big at-bat were hunting for Wright. He doubled to right in the third, scoring Jimmy Rollins. He made a brilliant, bare-handed pickup and throw on a bunt by Munenori Kawasaki leading off the bottom of that same inning. He followed that with a two-base throwing error on a sharp grounder by Ichiro Suzuki, a mistake that somehow did no harm.
Wright had his evening out there, filled with busy drama, while the Americans were eliminated in self-destructive fashion. The U.S. committed three errors, including Derek Jeter's bad throw in the eighth that led to three unearned runs. But really, the Americans simply never had the pitching to win the WBC. Not even close.
A dose of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett or Joba Chamberlain might have helped greatly. Instead, starter Roy Oswalt was knocked around by a series of line drives in Japan's five-run fourth inning, when Johnson unaccountably kept the poor fellow out there about three batters too long.
The Americans, playing these past weeks with one hand tied behind their backs, finished the 2009 WBC with a mediocre record of 4-4, falling short of the final for a second straight time. Japan moves on Monday night to face historical archrival Korea for the title. Both those Asian teams arrived in better shape, having practiced since December. They also played a small-ball, running style that Johnson oddly dismissed as ineffective Sunday before the game.
"It's like facing Anaheim," Jeter said after the loss. "They don't strike out."
Wright can certainly look himself in the mirror today - not in the A-Rod way - before he heads back to rejoin the Mets in Florida. He leaves after a game-winning, tournament-saving hit against Puerto Rico. And with a slight toe injury that he doesn't care to discuss as much as the great time he had playing catch with Jeter before the games.
That was quite the sight again Sunday, New York's two favorite players tossing a baseball and glaring impatiently at the Japanese, who were not vacating the field quite quickly enough after batting practice. "We can't go on until they're done," grumped Jeter, another guy who can never get enough baseball.
Wright couldn't wait, either. He recently made a friend in Miami, Felix Perez, a veteran who grew up in North Bergen, from the 82nd Airborne Division, injured in Iraq in 2004. Their conversations provided more inspiration to play on.
"Once you've seen what a couple of guys have been through that, and how much the flag means to him, obviously that inspires us," Wright said.
In the end, inspiration was not enough. His team losing by four runs in the fifth, Wright came to the plate against Daisuke Matsuzaka with two runners on base and one out, a chance to get back in the game. He looked at a third strike that appeared too outside and low on the replay. Wright wasn't happy. He left for the bench complaining to Paul Emmel, the American umpire.
Some things never change, whether you're playing for Fred Wilpon or Uncle Sam. A tough call can ruin an inning. It can't wreck an entire international experience, however. Wright goes back to the majors today, takes back his position at third.
From his hot corner of the world, he can see a little farther.
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Centerfield
Mar 23 2009 09:24 AM
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I seem to be the only one I know that's a little pissed that we didn't have a deeper pitching staff. I mean, when Oswalt gets knocked around, we don't have anyone better than Josh Grabow? Where's CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett? Or Brad Lidge? Or Cole Hamels coming in to face a lefty.
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metsguyinmichigan
Mar 23 2009 09:29 AM
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If the US was taking this seriously, it wouldn't have Jeter out there. They'd have an outfielder who could field, move Dunn to DH and send lame-assed Jeter back home.
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metirish
Mar 23 2009 09:31 AM
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Bondy is pissed too. Morgan talked about it last night, in fact I was taken aback a bit by his biting criticism of the USA pitching staff and who was not there.
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Edgy DC
Mar 23 2009 09:32 AM
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Johnson's taking a lot of heat for not going for matchups more aggessively. In the rout that Puerto Rico laid on the US, he pretty much admitted he hung Peavy out to dry because Peavy had to get his work in.
And if he's getting pressure (or outright orders) to manage that way, or to play Jeter against his own sense, you've got ask, "Why are players and fans expected to get behind this 100% when the folks fielding the team aren't?"
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Fman99
Mar 23 2009 09:33 AM
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="Centerfield":2pc49ojt]I seem to be the only one I know that's a little pissed that we didn't have a deeper pitching staff. I mean, when Oswalt gets knocked around, we don't have anyone better than Josh Grabow? Where's CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett? Or Brad Lidge? Or Cole Hamels coming in to face a lefty.[/quote:2pc49ojt]
Tim Lincecum, don't forget. Brandon Webb, Dan Haren, etc.
It's part of my beef with this thing... if you're going to send the best hitters we have at least have the pitchers to match. The other teams did, we did not.
Not that Roy Oswalt is a slouch, mind you. But some of these arms in the pen for team USA make me wonder.
Plus, throw Jeter in the fucking can. He's old and he can't hit or field much anymore. Let him be the first base coach.
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Centerfield
Mar 23 2009 09:37 AM
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That's right. Lincecum. He's the one that got me started on my tirade last night. When we had to go to Grabow in the middle innings and then they played the Lincecum video game commercial.
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Edgy DC
Mar 23 2009 09:43 AM
Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Mar 23 2009 10:40 AM
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="Fman99":1vmjnthj]="Centerfield":1vmjnthj]I seem to be the only one I know that's a little pissed that we didn't have a deeper pitching staff. I mean, when Oswalt gets knocked around, we don't have anyone better than Josh Grabow? Where's CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett? Or Brad Lidge? Or Cole Hamels coming in to face a lefty.[/quote:1vmjnthj]
Tim Lincecum, don't forget. Brandon Webb, Dan Haren, etc.
It's part of my beef with this thing... if you're going to send the best hitters we have at least have the pitchers to match. The other teams did, we did not.[/quote:1vmjnthj]
I'm disagreeing there. Japan and Korea and Cuba may have, for all I know, but it's pretty easy to take the no-shows for Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and assemble a better staff than the one they showed up with.
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G-Fafif
Mar 23 2009 10:02 AM
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David Wright has played Major League Baseball in New York for 4-1/2 seasons. He's been to the playoffs. He's made three All-Star teams, twice as a starter. He's been on the cover of whichever video game it was, been on magazine covers, done commercials...why on earth would any professional baseball reporter think he needs Derek F. Jeter to mentor him at this stage of his career regarding baseball or how to handle attention? Even looking at it objectively, what kind of BS is that?
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Benjamin Grimm
Mar 23 2009 11:17 AM
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I agree. It's just nuts.
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Edgy DC
Mar 23 2009 11:21 AM
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He's the pitchman for Jae Rock Lee, and he don't need anybody to show him how that's done.
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Benjamin Grimm
Mar 23 2009 12:03 PM
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Edgy DC
Mar 23 2009 12:22 PM
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Wright passed the two-year mark without jumping on Oprah's couch.
At least, you know, not on camera.
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dinosaur jesus
Mar 26 2009 11:25 PM
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"Let’s go ahead and say it: no major league team has ever won a pennant with a 35-year-old shortstop."
Feel free to say it, but that won't make it true. Major league teams that have won a pennant with a 35-year-old shortstop:
Giants, 1905 (Bill Dahlen, 35)
White Sox, 1906 (George Davis, 35)
Pirates, 1909 (Honus Wagner, 35)
Cardinals, 1928 (Rabbit Maranville, 36)
Tigers, 1945 (Skeeter Webb, 35)
Yankees, 1952 (Phil Rizzuto, 35)
Yankees, 1953 (Phil Rizzuto, 36)
Dodgers, 1955 (Pee Wee Reese, 36)
Dodgers, 1956 (Pee Wee Reese, 37)
Braves, 1999 (Walt Weiss, 35, splitting time with Ozzie Guillen, 35)
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Edgy DC
Mar 26 2009 11:50 PM
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I came up with Rizzuto, Rizzuto, Wagner, and Weiss. Good job. Please send.
The problem isn't so much being 35, as that 35 will force you to confront what should have been addressed years ago. You've been oversold.
Thing is that he's been an excellent pleyer.
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G-Fafif
Mar 27 2009 05:29 AM
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Boy, how I'd love to not see Walt Weiss on that list.
| ]Unfortunately, sportswriters outside New York Jeter may need a bit more. Most baseball analysts I know agree that Jeter should or could have won MVP awards in 1998, 1999, and 2006. That he didn’t probably reflects the rest of the country’s resentment that New York players receive so much national attention (or at any rate, are said to). |
Yes, it was all anti-New York bias, not the possibility that Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez and Joe Mauer helped push less loaded teams over the top and got credit for their accomplishments therein.
How come "baseball analysts" are absolutely brilliant and "sportswriters" are a bunch of dumb clucks? Jeter doesn't get enough appreciation from sportswriters? On what planet?
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Edgy DC
Mar 27 2009 06:48 AM
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Yeah, it's mainstream bias. I've got friends from Pittsburgh and Milwaukee who believed all that intangible shit.
And then I schoolded 'em.
If the US won the World Baseball Classic, Jeter would have been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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