The Strange Desire To Mythologize Derek Jeter Above All Things

I don't remember it like that. I remember there were Favre apologists who said he did nothing wrong and others who ripped the shit out of him, but over time people stopped focusing on it. We know what we saw, but nobody can prove he did anything intentionally.

 

Agree 100 percent.

This does more damage to the All-Star Game than it does to Jeter. Ever since the debacle that was the tie, Selig tried to make people think this game mattered because of home-field advantage in the World Series.

When a pitcher on a team that very well could be in the playoffs doesn't care about winning the game, it just tells you what most of us already know, that baseball's all-star game is just as much of a joke as the Pro Bowl and the NBA All-Star game.

 

I don't think it's a strange desire. He is a living legend of sports, walking off of his own choice from the most iconic team of all team following the lineage straight from Babe Ruth to Lou Gehrig to Joe Dimaggio to Mantle and Maris and Berra and Reggie and Mattingly. Writing an article to mythologize Jeter follows right in the tradition of sportswriting paeons to the game's greats. And maybe the writer gets immortalized in an Anthology of Derek Jeter someday.

So I think it's a most common desire to mythologize Jeter above all things.

 

For a sport that has so many significantly damaged heroes over the last 20 years, Jeter is seen as, and is portrayed as the last of his kind by the media.

 

And it's pretty much because he never got married, so he could fuck anybody he wanted without any kind of judgment or social penalty.

 

Exactly. While he didn't do anything wrong, it was kind of interesting how the media celebrated him for doing this. Most players would be called womanizers or called a douche for the gift bag deal, but I think it made some fans and media like him even more.

 

Handsome. Affable. Polite. Cocksure. Dedicated. Charming.

New York Yankees. Champion.

What more do you want?

 

What are some other instances where it's widely believed that someone grooved a pitch or that sport's equivalent?

 

Let's just hope he doesn't murder his ex-wife and a waiter 15 years from now.

 

The Strahan-Favre thing mentioned above.

Denny McLain admitted to grooving a pitch to Mickey Mantle at the end of his career to help him pass Jimmie Foxx on the all-time list and because he wanted to be able to say he gave up Mick's last homer (he ended up hitting another after that).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/sports/baseball/09mclain.html?_r=0

There was the UConn women's player (can't remember her name) who was allowed to score a basket and become the school's all-time leading scorer when she was obviously too injured to play.

 

3,400 hits.

 

Whitey Ford threw a curveball to Billy Martin in Martin's first post-trade visit to Yankee Stadium with the Royals, told Martin the same pitch was coming again, and Martin went deep.