I meant to write a post like this a solid year ago, but I kept putting it off. It’s not directly baseball-related, and it has a decently high likelihood of inspiring an exhausting reaction. But then Bill Simmons’ “Book of Basketball” came out in paperback, and he has been on a mini-tour to promote it, and started a mini-multimedia-feud with Charles Pierce (who returned fire and then some), and Alex started pestering me to do it, and so I will.

Photo from doulikeme.wordpress.com

I’ve mostly found Bill Simmons to be an entertaining, engaging writer. His persona gets too over-the-top frat-boy for me at times (choose your own adventure with that last link), but I used to enjoy his columns even if I rolled my eyes often – anyone who spends as much time as I do on sports blogs is inured to a certain amount of that, and usually, if it doesn’t seem malicious, I brush it off easily enough. You can’t fight every battle and it’s no fun trying. Anyway, I got a kick out of Simmons’ baseball columns even though I often disagree with him there (even aside from him being a Red Sox fan) — but when it comes to basketball, he really knows his stuff. So when I visited my publisher last winter I was pleased to pick up a copy of the then-new “Book of Basketball,” and even more pleased to see that it had pushed Mitch Albom’s latest pap out of first place on the New York Times bestseller list.

The first really clear sign of trouble was this sentence and footnote (talking about going to Vegas, of course):

“I needed permission from my pregnant wife, who was perpetually ornery from (a) carrying our second child during the hot weather months in California, and (b) being knocked up because I pulled the goalie on her back in February.(1)
(1)The term “pulling the goalie” means “eschewing birth control and letting the chips fall where they may.” Usually couples discuss pulling the goalie before it happens… unless it’s Bridgette Moynahan. In my case, I made the executive decision to speed up plans for kid number two. This did not go over well. I think I’m the first person who ever had a home pregnancy test whipped at them at 95 mph. In my defense, I’m getting old and wanted to have a second kid before I wouldn’t be able to have a catch with them anymore. I have no regrets. Plus, we had a son. In the words of Joel Goodson, sometimes you gotta say, “What the fuck?” (pages 30-31)

What the fuck is right. I assume this is a joke — at least, it’s clearly supposed to be funny, but man did it fall flat with me. “Ornery” does not begin to describe my reaction if my husband, who’d very soon be my ex-husband, made an “executive decision” to stop using birth control without telling me. (Also, what the hell were they using that he could do this without her knowing? A valid question, though not one I care to dwell on).

A lot of reviewers noted “The Book of Basketball’s” sexism at the time. Writing in a discussion at New York Magazine’s Vulture Blog, here’s Tommy Craggs:

I’m glad Jonathan [Lethem] brought up the sexism, because, well, it’s pretty astounding (this from a guy writing next to the stripper pole at Deadspin HQ). Let’s just pass over the story about the “mediocre Asian with fake cans” and head straight to this little pearl, provided by Simmons’s buddy Bug: “Every time I watch Jason Kidd play, initially it’s like seeing a girl walk into a bar who’s just drop-dead gorgeous, but then when he throws up one of those bricks, it’s like the gorgeous girl taking off her jacket and you see she has tiny mosquito bites for tits.” Yeesh.

His take was followed by Ben Mathis-Lilley’s:

First, some thoughts on the book’s horrible sexism. In my notes on TBOB, I actually stopped bothering to copy down the most egregious comments and figured I’d just note when Simmons mentioned a woman for any reason other than evaluating her appeal as something to put a penis in. I’m open to correction on this, but I believe it was when he praised Meryl Streep’s acting somewhere around page 500.

The annoying thing about Simmons’s sexism in this book is that it’s not only abhorrent—we probably all look up to writers and artists and Shawn Kemps who have personal attitudes we don’t agree with—it’s intrusively abhorrent. I’m not a Puritan. I don’t mind battle-of-the-sexes banter or bachelor-party anecdotes and I’m not, presently, wearing pants. But Simmons gets into weird, pathological territory. Here’s a selection from one of his columns that the book prompted me to look up:

---

I flew to San Fran to hang out with my buddies Bish, Mikey and Hopper (the heart of the original Vegas crew) for a few days. The weekend started off with Mikey showing us a then-legendary porn scene–one where Rocco Siffredi randomly decided to dunk a co-star’s head into a toilet–which we analyzed like it was the Zapruder film for a good two to 10 hours. Then we flew to Vegas and gambled for three straight days, and every time someone got killed by a blackjack hand we made a variation of a joke about someone getting their head rammed in the toilet by Rocco. Vegas is the place where you beat the same joke into the ground, but this went to another level–flushing sounds, gurgling, “No, no Rocco, not again!” and everything else. It just never got old.

---

Jeez, man. Jeez. I didn’t realize guys like this had friends; I assumed they were all rapey basement loners. We reviewers and commenters seem to be in agreement that it’s not cool—so who’s out there egging him on? Am I misjudging the sleaziness of the American male?

Both of those writers did a good job of laying out the hostile tone that surfaces in this book dozens of times, though I should point out that both of them went on to mostly enjoy it otherwise. And I can see why – it’s easy reading, outside of this issue, and as I said the guy knows his basketball; he did a lot of research, put a lot of thought in, and his love of the game shines through. Unfortunately, so does his utter contempt for women, and I just couldn’t ignore the mounting pile of passages like this:

“There are three great what-ifs in my life that don’t involve women. The first is, “What if I had gone west or south for college?” This haunts me and will continue to haunt me until the day I die. I could have chosen a warm-weather school with hundreds of gorgeous sorority girls, and instead I went to an Irish Catholic school on a Worcester hill with bone-chilling 20-degree winds, which allowed female students to hide behind heavy coats and butt-covering sweaters so thick it became impossible to guess their weight within a 35-pound range.” (page 157)

“…Phoenix swapped Kidd to New Jersey for Stephon Marbury a few months after Kidd was charged with domestic assault. (36)
(36) Anytime “he smacked his wife, let’s get him the hell out of here” is the only reason for dealing one of the best top-ten point guards ever, I’m sorry, that’s a shitty reason. By the way, this footnote was written by Ike Turner.” (page 236)

(Yes, I know it’s a joke. I think it’s possible to pull off a funny joke about domestic violence — as George Carlin used to say, you can find some sort of humor in any topic. This is not that joke.)

“I’m springing one of my favorite theories here: the Tipping Point Friend. Every group of female college friends goes between eight and twelve girls deep. Within that group, there might be three or four little cliques and backstabbing is through the roof, but the girls get along for the most part and make a big deal about hanging out, doing dinners, having special weekends and everything else. Maybe two of them get married early, then the other ones start dropping in their mid-20s until there’s only five left – the cute blonde who can’t get a boyfriend because she’s either a drunk, an anorexic, or a drunkorexic; the cute brunette who only attracts assholes; the 185-pounder who’d be cute if she lost weight; the not-so-cute one with a great sense of humor; and the sarcastic chain-smoker with 36DDs who isn’t quite cute enough to land anyone but hooks up a lot because of the 36DDs. In this scenario, the cute brunette is the Tipping Point Friend – as long as she’s in the group, guys will approach them in bars, clubs or wherever. Once she settles down with a non-asshole, now all the pressure is on the drunkorexic and if she can’t handle it, then the girl with 36DDs has to start wearing crazy shirts and blouses to show off her guns.” (page 258)

“I wish WNBA scores would be banned from all scrolling tickers on ABC and ESPN. I’m tired of subconsciously digesting tidbits like “Phoenix 52, Sacramento 44 F” and thinking, “Wait, that was the final score?” before realizing it was WNBA. Let’s just run their scores on NBA TV with pink lettering. And only between the hours of 2:00 a.m and 7:30 a.m.” (page 262)

I could have picked out and transcribed a dozen more examples, but life is short. Taken one at a time, any of these could be shrugged off, but each one piles on the previous instances until they have so much cumulative bulk that they can’t be ignored. I read a lot of books that are written by men and for a largely male audience — in fact that describes many of my favorite books. But this book goes further: it’s not just not coming from a male perspective, it seems to have been written without the slightest hint that any woman could ever conceivably read it. I don’t know what Simmons is like personally, but with this book the Sports Guy persona that he’s constructed for himself has become downright toxic.

Simmons does have a number of female fans, and hey, to each their own. I would have liked to know what the rest of his NBA Pyramid looked like, but not enough to wade through 400 more pages of this stuff. In light of the above passages, reading Melissa Jacobs’ well done but not exactly hard-hitting interview with Bill Simmons on espnW, I found this exchange interesting:

MJ: Moving on to the great world of fantasy football and your “Fantasy Fixes” column, which outraged a lot of women. Do you still think women shouldn’t be allowed to integrate into men’s leagues?

BS: I don’t think it should be a law. I just personally like to be in a league with all guys. I like hanging out with guys in certain situations and I think we should be allowed to do that without it being sexist. Sometimes I like just hanging out with my guy friends. My wife likes hanging out with her friends.

MJ: But you’re not against other dudes, who don’t have a history of being in a league with their buddies, having integrated leagues?

BS: (laughing) You say integrated like it’s the 1960’s. Brown versus the Board of Education or something.

MJ: (laughing) I know. It’s quasi intentional.

BS: If it was one of my friends and he was in a league with girls, would we make fun of him? Yeah. Whatever. I don’t care. For me, we like to sit around and make fun of each other and, if we had a girl in our group we hung out with all the time, it would make sense. But just to bring in a random girl doesn’t make sense.

So… no close female friends, then? Shocking.

I have to say that, after all this, I’m still glad “The Book of Basketball” got Mitch Albom out of 1st on the Times list. But the enemy of my enemy is not my friend here. I wish I could have read more of “The Book of Basketball” without getting pissed off and grossed out, but there was, if you will, a Tipping Point Sexist Paragraph effect at play in this book. After a certain number of them go by, you can no longer see it as casual or unintentional or thoughtless – it’s flat-out unattractive, and I will not be approaching it in bars or clubs.

Middle relief: not always pretty...

Middle relievers are nobody’s top priority, nor should they be. As we know all too well, their performances tend to vary wildly from year to year, and even when they’re consistently good they’re still less valuable than your average starter or corner outfielder. And yet, given their rather middling importance, they create an outsize amount of fan stress, disgust, and general tsuris. Every year there is at least one, and often several, relievers who the fans pile on, bemoan, and endlessly joke about and rag on — every team needs a scapegoat for the vagaries of middle relief. The Yankees appear to be turning to this unglamorous segment of team-building right about now, so let’s see who some of the candidates are for either our pleasant surprise or our ire.

The Yankees are apparently nearing a deal with ex-Mets workhorse Pedro Feliciano, known to Amazins fans as Perpetual Pedro. I’ve watched Feliciano pitch in many dozens of games over the years (particularly recently, as he led the NL in appearances two of the last three seasons) and think of him as, more than anything, solid. He has his streaks, both good and bad, and he’s not ever going to inspire a 2007-era Joba sort of frenzy. But he goes out there as often as you could possibly want, and he’s usually good enough to get the job done, no muss no fuss. Jerry Manuel kept trying to use him against good right-handed batters, and that was a mistake; but against lefties, he’s as good as you could ask.

Bobby Jenks has been mentioned for the Yankees and a number of other teams – but word is he’s asking for “closer money,” and therefore may not be a fit for the Yanks. To which I say, too bad – not so much because of any talent he might have but because he is, if I might go ahead and judge this book by its cover, likely to be quite entertaining. The Yankees’ no-facial-hair policy would be a blessing to Jenks and all those who care about him, but personally I would lose out on a good deal of laughter at the expense of ol’ Vagina Chin here.

UPDATE: Never mind, as Buster Olney reports the Red Sox have signed Jenks. Oh, this should be fun…

Kerry Wood looks to be returning to the mothership, as he and the Cubs seem to be close to a deal. The Yankees may miss him (or perhaps not – again, see above re: the year-to-year variability of relievers), but frankly the Wood story was already a pretty excellent one last year, and this could make it an even more compelling narrative. I hope he gets his deal, I hope he does well, I hope both he and the fans get some closure on What Might Have Been. Most of all I hope he stays healthy.

Which brings us to…

The Yankees took a low-risk flyer on Prior. There is almost no way he’ll come back, after four years of injury, to be effective — it would be virtually unprecedented.

But it’s certainly worth rooting for.

Who else you got?

Great baseball names always seem to come in bunches. Tonight I was looking up Carl Crawford’s stats when I decided, for no particular reason, to look all the players born on his birthday, August 5th. This yielded a number of very solid Name of the Week candidates, but my favorite has to be:

Fabian Gaffke.

Fabian Sebastian Gaffke, in fact. Born in Milwaukee in 1913, Gaffke played for Boston from 1936 to 1939, and for Cleveland in 1941 and 1942. With many players away serving in WWII, Gaffke and his career line of .227/.297/.361 (good for a career OPS+ of 67) lasted longer than they otherwise might have. But he did have his moments. Per the Baseball-Reference Bullpen, in 1937 he had a five-hit game, a separate  five-run game, and a three-homer game for the Red Sox, and his OPS+ that year was 102. Before and in between stints in the majors, he played for the Minneapolis Millers in the American Association.

Other excellently-named players born on August 5th include Ossie Chavaria (who in 38 games for the 1967 Kansas City Royals put up a remarkable OPS+ of 5), Rocky Krsnic, Rube Novotny, Ebba St. Claire, Slim McGrew, Buddy Gremp, and Bob Daughters.

First off all, something interesting: last night many people (including me) were eager to jump on the Cliff-Lee-took-less-money story, embracing the idea that here was the rare athlete motivated by something different, and therefore in some way admirable. Well, beware of easy storylines. It now seems that Lee may not have taken much less money at all. Our old friend William argues, at his blog and The Yankee U, that when you include the Phillies’ vesting option for a sixth year, the difference is negligible; he gets into the details of things like tax rates and interest rates which I am wary of diving into myself, but it does at least seem clear that while Lee may have taken less money, it was not near the $50 million less that was being thrown around last night. (Of course, I would love to get paid in a year what Cliff Lee will make in an inning, so it’s pretty much all magic-fun-numbers anyway at this level).

None of this really changes my reaction, which could be summed up as “probably for the best down the road, and if you need me in 2011, I’ll be on the floor, curled into the fetus position around a bottle of Laphroaig.”

With the drama of days and days of fevered speculation behind us, what’s next? The Yankees are already beginning to move on, making the non-inspiring but likely harmless move of signing Russell Martin to a one-year deal. To me, this doesn’t say they’re necessarily planning to trade one of their catching prospects (though of course that’s a possibility), but rather that they really, really do not think Jorge Posada can catch much anymore. Will the catching situation be the new dead horse upon which we release our impatience and frustration?

I’m taking suggestions, but I would like to preemptively oppose further debate on the Joba-as-starter idea. Yes, it makes sense to me too… but apparently it doesn’t to the Yankees, and there’s no meat left on that bone. He remains, for now, the World’s Most Famous Mediocre Middle Reliever.

Also, anybody who so much as whispers a word rhyming with “Pavano” gets slapped with a fish, Python-style.

55 days ’til spring training…

Well, I did not see that coming.

So it appears that Cliff Lee is indeed going to Philly — and apparently for tens of millions less than the Yankees (and presumably, Rangers) offered.

I can’t say I’ve seen an athlete do that too often, so not that he’ll be going hungry or anything, but I have a lot of respect for his decision. Well, in a sense. Anyone who takes millions of dollars less than they could make in New York, to live in Philadelphia, is not someone I feel I understand very well. Really? (“…Her?”). They’ve got one hell of a rotation there now, and I suppose that was part of the appeal for him. Maybe the guy just really loves cheese steak? Ah well, to each their own.

Particularly if Andy Pettitte doesn’t come back (… COME BACK ANDY! How does $25 million sound?!), next year’s Yankee pitching staff is looking a little Mitrish. As much as many of us thought a seven-year deal would likely be a drag on the team by the fifth or sixth year, it sure would’ve looked pretty in 2011. Now Brian Cashman is going to have to scramble faster than he scrambled down the side of that Connecticut office building in an elf costume. But hey, as Jon DeRosa put it last night, “On the bright side, we are now primed for 2015. Do not mess with us in 2015.”

Feel free to panic, rationalize, or remain in denial, as you prefer, below.

Earlier today, on Twitter, I offered Cliff Lee all the money I have on me ($7.65) if he would hurry up and decide something already, so that I could write about him today. I have not yet heard back from his agent, however, so I went ahead and bought lunch and the offer is no longer on the table.

In the absence of any baseball news more significant than Brian Bruney signing with the White Sox, and some media-on-media violence from the usually mild-mannered Buster Olney and Joe Posnanski, I am thus forced to turn my attention to basketball. Which, in recent years in New York City, has been almost unspeakably bleak. But after years of excruciating play, and then years of being unable to bring myself to care how excruciating their play was, I am casting a hopeful but wary eye on the Knicks.

Going by his own statement, Isiah Thomas, who has by now made it clear that he is clinically delusional, targeted Lebron James for the 2010 season from the very first unfortunate moment that he was hired to run the Knicks. (He even tries to make that his explanation for the Eddy Curry deal, but like all other explanations for the Eddy Curry deal, it makes no sense whatsoever). As you may have noticed, however, Lebron did not come to New York City this season, and I’m just as glad, because people hate New York sports teams enough as it is, and because the whole “Decision” thing was so insufferable. But I did not think, at first, that Amar’e Stoudemire would be any kind of suitable consolation prize.

Stoudemire is no LeBron, but he’s also a lot better than I gave him credit for prior to this season, and he’s a fairly interesting, likeable guy to boot. This is the first year since the millenium, more or less, that the Knicks have been any fun to watch, and that’s not all Stoudemire, but he’s played a big role. I did not expect that I would gain much pleasure from watching point guard Raymond Felton, either, but I was wrong – and really after the agony of the Stephon Marbury years, it’s just lovely to have a PG who isn’t noticeably mentally unstable, miserable, and constantly jeered by his hometown crowd. Wilson Chandler, Landry Fields: I expected nothing and, for once, the Knicks have overdelivered… so far. They do not seem to hate each other, their fans, or their coach… yet.

The season is still young and, when it comes to the Knicks (or any team owned by James Dolan), I will not count my dysfunctional chickens. No imaginable severity of collapse could surprise me any more. But the Knickerbockers are working on their best record since the Clinton years, and finally, best of all, the Garden is no longer hostile and angry and hurt. I don’t need the Knicks to be great right now, I just need them to be better. Mediocrity is a soothing relief.

Needless to say, it’s been many many years since that was true of the Yankees. Which is why they are willing to go a walloping seven years on a 32-year-old pitcher, and why that pitcher can take his sweet Arkansas time in making up his mind. Hurry up, Lee, or I’m going to have to write about the god damn Jets, and nobody wants that.

Because, as Brian Cashman told reporters at the Winter Meetings yesterday, “this is what he always does,” I’ve half-assumed that Andy Pettitte would come back for another year. And if I had to put money down, I’d still guess that he will… but I also sort of conveniently forgot that he was now 38 years old and coming off a groin injury. Anyway, that Cashman line prompted my to look up the excellent Sports Illustrated lunch conversation between Tom Verducci and Musketeers Pettitte, Jeter, Posada and Rivera from just before spring training last season:

SI: How about when the season ends? You talk? Text?

Pettitte: We text.

Posada: We stay in touch. We try to get Andy to come back. ‘Andy, please come back. Please come back.’

SI: You guys took a picture together after the last game at Yankee Stadium in 2008. Do you guys do that every year?

Posada: Yeah, it’s Andy’s idea.

Rivera: Yeah, and it’s great because you don’t know how long we’re going to be together.

Jeter: We’ve done it other years because we did it when Bernie [Williams…] was there, too, right?

Posada: We’ve done it since ’03 because Andy’s been retiring since ’03.

Yesterday Andy Pettitte made a very Andy Pettitte-like call to Brian Cashman, and Chad Jennings at LoHud has the rather heartwarming details:

Andy Pettitte called Brian Cashman today. The message was vague and uncertain, but the purpose was direct and to the point. Pettitte still hasn’t decided whether he’s going to retire, but he had to make sure his indecision wasn’t negatively affecting the Yankees offseason.

“If I had to bet at some point, I think he’ll play,” Cashman said. “But he’s telling me right now he’s leaning the other way. He just doesn’t want to hold us up.”

Cashman said there was nothing Pettitte said that gave him reason for optimism, he simply believes — because “this is what he always does” — that Pettitte will eventually have a change of heart and decide to pitch one more year. For now, though, it’s completely up in the air.

This is a little gesture, but it’s one that a lot of players wouldn’t bother to make, and it’s things like this that give Pettitte his aw-shucks good guy reputation. When he finally does retire he will be hugely missed, and as always I just hope it isn’t this year. Aside from the fact that, especially in light of recent Red Sox developments, the Yanks could really, REALLY use a solid lefty this season, I want Pettitte to come back so that the fans can get a chance to say a proper goodbye. I remember someone pointing out, in Pettitte’s final 2010 playoff appearance, that it could be his last time in a Yankee uniform, but he hadn’t said anything yet, and the moment went almost entirely unacknowledged.

I have never really cried over baseball, but the closest I came was probably the 2001 World Series – those miraculous comebacks and, especially, the crowd chanting Paul O’Neill’s name. Of course the fall of 2001 was highly emotional for other, much more significant reasons, but that moment really got to me — and to O’Neill, who got awkward and embarrassed and teared up himself. It was Yankee fans at their best (the Bombers were losing at the time, after all), and the old Stadium at its most alive. That particular moment won’t ever be recreated, but Andy Pettitte deserves his own sendoff. He started, and won, the very first game I ever attended at Yankee Stadium – in 1995; I was 13 – and I would very much like to be there for his last. When all’s said and done I suppose you have to evaluate Andy Pettitte as a very good pitcher rather than, on the whole, a truly great one, but he had so many great and big and gutty games over the course of his career, and no player features in more of my Yankee memories.

Mere hours after signing Jeff Francoeur, the Kansas City Royals are apparently “nearing an agreement” with Melky Cabrera.

Now: as I wrote here less than a month ago, I like Melky, and I wish him a long and happy life and a prosperous career. That said, until I see him in a Royals uniform, I’m going to assume this is just an all-too-believable joke that got out of hand.

Do the Red Sox have a deal done with Carl Crawford? That’s what PeteAbe is Tweeting:

Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford? That’s quite the lineup upgrade for the Sox. I’ve written before (as have many others) that seven years seems ill-advised to me for a player like Crawford who relies so much on his speed, but that’s not to say he won’t kick ass and take names for a while yet. I hope that wherever he is, Jesus Montero is working on his snap throws to second.

Keep in mind that this isn’t confirmed yet. Still, Abraham wouldn’t have run with it if he wasn’t confident in his source.

UPDATE: Okay, now it’s confirmed: the deal is all but done, pending a physical and a few contract details. Who’s happier right now, Crawford, Sox fans, or Cliff Lee’s agent?

Well, I keep trying to write a Cliff Lee post and the latest news keeps changing. Yesterday the reported rumor, which remains unconfirmed, was that two “mystery teams,” not the Yankees or Rangers, were willing to offer a seven year contract. This seems hard to swallow, however, since at that point the Yankees hadn’t even been given the chance to make an official offer. Today, we heard that New York may be plotting a six-year, $140-150 million offer, which sounds to me much more probable, but also like the outer edge of reasonableness. By now they may well have made it. And in his Winter Meetings press conference today, Joe Girardi called Lee “everything you want” and described him as “important” to the Yankees’ plans.

I wouldn’t be too upset if the Yanks miss out on Lee – as Cliff Corcoran and others have pointed out this offseason, there’s very good reason to be wary of signing a pitcher like Lee to a big, long term contract. It would help the Yankees next year but likely trip them up by 2015, if not sooner. And while I would love to watch Cliff Lee pitch every five days, because the man is an artist, I just don’t know that it will justify the long-term price.

Anyway, the absolute latest news is that Lee’s agent is leaving the winter meetings (with the cryptic words “We’re going somewhere.” Right. I hope he meant “we’re getting somewhere,” but that’s only slightly more illuminating). So nobody knows anything yet.

Wait — scratch that: bowing to their destiny, the Royals have signed Jeff Francoeur, just as you knew they would. Bring on the equally inevitable epic Posnanski post!

UPDATE: The Yankees did indeed make an offer today, widely reported as six years and in the neighborhood of $140 million. I’ll be curious to see if there really was any “mystery team” out there willing to go seven years.

Serious face.

I’m not surprised that Derek Jeter is upset about the way his negotiation with the Yankees went down.

I am surprised that he’s talking about it with reporters.

Jeter’s reluctance to say anything remotely controversial in public has become something of a running joke. Whether that’s because he’s wanted to protect his valuable image, or because he just didn’t want to deal with the rounds of media pestering that inevitably follow any such comment in New York, I don’t know, but I’ve often written semi-seriously that Jeter hasn’t said anything interesting since 1997.

“I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t angry about how some of this went,” he told reporters at his press conference today, and I couldn’t help thinking since when has that stopped you? Which isn’t quite right – Jeter doesn’t  lie, he just evades the question. As is entirely his right, I should add; if you’re trying to write an interesting story Jeter’s protective caution can get frustrating, but I’ve always thought it was a smart move on his part.

He didn’t go on a rant or anything, but Jeter was more forthright today than I would have expected. The Times has the summary:

Speaking at a news conference at the Yankees’ spring training complex here to mark the completion of his new contract, Jeter said that the “thing that bothered me most” about the protracted negotiations was “how public this became.”

“The negotiations were supposed to be private,” Jeter said. Instead, he had to endure a back-and-forth between his agent, Casey Close, and the Yankees in which Jeter’s age, 36, and declining offensive numbers were batted around for all to see and comment on.

As it went on and on, it got to Jeter, who told reporters: “It was an uncomfortable position that I felt was in. It was not an enjoyable experience.”

Still, Jeter emphasized: “I had never planned on going anywhere, I didn’t want to go to any other teams. I didn’t want to hear from other teams.”

We all expected Jeter to come back, and he did, even if the process wasn’t as smooth and unruffled as we’ve come to expect of Jeter’s public actions. (I do have to wonder: if Jeter really just wanted things quiet, then as Tyler Kepner points out, why did he have his agent talk to the press?). Anyway, I expect this story will fade quickly into the background once spring training starts, and when we look back over Jeter’s career I don’t expect it to register as anything more than a tiny blip. Still, the facade came down just a little today, and that doesn’t happen often.

As an addendum, I love how the different papers and publications decided to headline this story:

MLB.com: Jeter Drama Ends With Signed Three-Year Pact

New York Times: Jeter Was ‘Uncomfortable’ During Contract Talks

New York Post: Jeter ‘Angry’ That Talks With the Yankees Were So Public

Heh.

Finally, I want to add my heartfelt congratulations to the chorus I’ve already seen for friend-of-the-Banter Jay Jaffe and his mustache, who were elected to the BBWAA today. Great news for Jay, and better news for baseball fans who would like awards and Hall of Fame voting to keep getting smarter.

I read three very different takes on the Derek Jeter deal on Sunday. For a contract that seemed relatively uncontroversial to me at first glance — the Yankees overpaid for Jeter like you knew they would, but not insanely — it’s inspired a remarkably wide variety of opinions, and illuminated the strikingly different points of view that make up baseball commentary these days.

The first one I read is from Mike Lupica (I know, I know), and is headlined “Shame on Yankees for dropping ball and insulting Derek Jeter during heated contract talks.” Lupica comes down firmly on the side of the Jeter camp:

…[The Yankees] wanted it to look, in the more heated parts of this, as though Jeter was the greedy one. They were twitchy to get out there what they said Jeter wanted, were delighted to get in the papers that Jeter wanted $23 million or $24 million a year, whatever the Yankees said he was asking for. Not just delighted. Thrilled.

They thought it made them look good. But you know who has always made them look good? Jeter has…

…Now they think they protect that brand by giving him this kind of hard time, taking this kind of hard line. I talked to one respected baseball guy in the middle of this, watching this all play out, and asked if Jeter will ever forget the way this all played out, being told in public to go find a better offer if he thought he could.

There was a pause at the other end of the phone and then the guy said, “Never.”

 

Lupica concludes, “You can’t be a better Yankee than Jeter has been. It is the Yankees who will someday wish they had done things better on this.”

Then we have Mike Vaccaro of the Post weighing in with “Deal saves Derek from becoming Captain Crook.”

Derek Jeter may not realize this right now, and he probably would never admit it even if he drank a Big Gulp of truth serum, but the Yankees did him a favor by playing this modest version of hardball, by refusing to empty the vault for him and foisting a pay cut on him.

By agreeing to a three-year deal worth $17 million annually plus an option for a fourth year and incentives, the Yankees came up a little and Jeter came down a lot, and if the compromise landed closer to the Yankees’ target number than to Jeter’s, it will still benefit the Captain in ways he can’t possibly appreciate yet.

Because throughout a career that already has netted him over $200 million in salary, Jeter never once had been hounded by his wealth. How many athletes can say that? Any player, any sport, who breaks the bank, the bank always is there alongside him, shadowing every move he makes. Ask Amar’e Stoudemire. Ask Johan Santana. Ask CC Sabathia. Ask the patron saint of all of them, Alex Rodriguez.

Jeter? Until the past few weeks, the money he has earned has been almost incidental, which is just another charmed way that he has smartly led his professional life.

Finally, over at SI.com, Joe Sheehan brings us “New York Yankees paying for what Jeter has already done” (You should click over and read the whole thing):

There’s no way around it: this is a contract that pays Jeter for what he has done, rather than what he is expected to do. It is sui generis, disconnected completely from market forces. Miguel Tejada, who was a bit worse than Jeter this year at the same age, was guaranteed about 15 percent of what Jeter got. Orlando Cabrera, a year younger and about as effective as Tejada last year, might not get that. Heck, it’s not that much less than what Troy Tulowitzki, one of the best players in baseball, is guaranteed at the peak of his six-year extension. The Yankees, not wanting to deal with the backlash, not able to replace Jeter with a star, not willing — for all their bluster — to treat him like a 36-year-old shortstop coming off a career-worst year, aren’t paying Jeter; they’re paying off Jeter.

The most likely scenario is that Jeter continues to decline, if not in a straight line, in a noticeable pattern over the life of the deal. His contract may be without compare, but as a player he’s one of many aging superstars, and the ones he most resembles statistically — such as Robin Yount, Alan Trammell and Craig Biggio — were not good everyday players after 36. There are precious few examples, in baseball history, of players even able to play shortstop regularly in their late 30s, and the ones who did successfully were excellent defensive players in their prime, a label that even his most ardent defenders wouldn’t hang on Jeter.

This is a huge problem for the Yankees, who have no place else to play Jeter due to the makeup of their roster and payroll. Worse still, any further offensive decline will make moving him a moot point, as his bat won’t play anywhere but shortstop. The money is spent, and the challenge for the Yankees over the next three seasons is to do what they couldn’t do in this negotiation: evaluate their shortstop based on his contributions to what is supposed to be the sole goal of the organization: winning a championship.

So here we have the Yankees screwing Jeter; the Yankees doing him a favor by cutting his pay; and the Yankees screwing themselves by giving him far too much. And I think that both Mike Vaccaro and Joe Sheehan make good points here. As for Lupica, I have a hard time believing that he really thinks the Yankees insulted Jeter (though if it’s true that all the leaks about what Jeter was asking for came from the Yankee front office, well, that is pretty interesting). The Jeter negotiations were not “heated”; “heated” is what will happen if Joe Sheehan and Mike Lupica are ever locked in a room together. Would it have been better if negotiations had been kept out of the media a bit more? Sure. But urging Jeter to test the market is hardly unfair or cruel.

I think that, as usual, Joe Sheehan is right from a pure baseball perspective — this contract, no matter how much less it may be than what Jeter wanted, is still vastly more than any other shortstop that age would ever get, and enough that if Jeter declines as the vast majority of late-thirties shortstops do, it will put the Yanks in a very tough spot. With that said, I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to pay someone, in part, for their past achievements. Of course they couldn’t just give him, as many fans (and apparently Mike Lupica) suggested, “whatever he wants,” but I want to see Jeter get his 3,000th hit as a Yankee; I want to see him play his last game as a Yankee. If the tradeoff is that the Yankees can’t afford to spend quite so much on other free agents over the next three years, and if that hurts their postseason chances somewhat, then I can live with that, even while I realize that Joe has probably called this one correctly, and there are headaches ahead.

I also agree with what Vaccaro had to say. I was surprised by the reports of what Jeter was said to be asking for, if only because he has generally played such a smooth PR game, and suddenly he seemed tone deaf. More than $100 million? Five or six years? That would have been a terribly unwise move for the Yankees (as opposed to the merely somewhat unwise move they eventually made), and it would have made Jeter look pretty awful. I make it a point to never get angry at players for trying to pry as much money as they can out of team owners, who are, without exception, exceedingly wealthy multimillionaires. But Jeter was asking for a truly irrational deal, and it would have changed the way fans looked at him — some nice memories on his way to retirement would not nearly justify that kind of money. Now, the way things worked out, he doesn’t have a massive contract he can’t possibly live up to shadowing his every remaining move.

Or… well, he kind of does. But it could be a lot worse.

Thoughts?

Once again, Marvin Miller has been left out of the Hall of Fame – this time by a single vote.

Pat Gillick got voted in. Nothing against Pat Gillick, who as they say is “a good baseball man,” but he was not one tenth as influential on Major League Baseball as Miller was. And I believe George Steinbrenner should be put  in as well – he didn’t get the votes, this time – but I imagine that he’ll get there at some point in the future; whereas it seems likely, at this point, that Miller never will.

Almost none of my reaction to this is printable (so to speak) on a family blog. It’s just so infuriatingly stupid, or spiteful, or both. I’ll let Miller speak for himself, something he is, as always, more than capable of doing. USA Today quotes from the statement he released:

“The Baseball Hall of Fame’s vote (or non-vote) of December 5, hardly qualifies as a news story. It is repetitively negative, easy to forecast, and therefore boring.

“A long time ago, it became apparent that the Hall sought to bury me long before my time, as a metaphor for burying the union and eradicating its real influence. Its failure is exemplified by the fact that I and the union of players have received far more support, publicity, and appreciation from countless fans, former players, writers, scholars, experts in labor management relations, than if the Hall had not embarked on its futile and fraudulent attempt to rewrite history. It is an amusing anomaly that the Hall of Fame has made me famous by keeping me out.”

Miller has made a point of never groveling or indeed campaigning at all for a place in the Hall of Fame, and he’s not changing course now. And he’s right here: the Hall is a repository of baseball history, but it’s not the only one. Anyone interested in the facts can do a little research and decide for themselves just how important a role Marvin Miller played, and his lack of inclusion in the Hall of Fame takes nothing away from his accomplishments. And for such an anti-establishment figure, maybe that really is more fitting.

Still, I would sure love to have a word with the  committee members who didn’t vote for him. That word wouldn’t be printable, either.

"Huzzah!"

Excellent if unsurprising news for Bomber fans, who can sleep a little easier tonight: Mariano Rivera is going to re-up. The Daily News got the scoop:

I never thought that Mo would leave, or that the Yankees would let him, but nevertheless: phew. And the deal seems fair to me. Obviously with any player Rivera’s age, there are concerns — but he hasn’t slipped an inch yet, and this contract isn’t going to be too huge a drag on the Yanks even if he does. Like almost everything else he’s ever done in New York, the negotiations seem to’ve been smooth as silk.

According to Peter Gammons, our unfriendly neighbors to the north are close to re-signing Jason Varitek to a two million dollar, one-year deal. Good news for the base stealers of the AL East.

Of course, yesterday Gammons tweeted “Cp L”. Still, this is about the easiest thing in the world to believe. The day the Red Sox don’t offer Jason Varitek a contract is the day we all peer anxiously towards the east to make sure the sun will still be rising there.

***

*Alternate title: Grand Moff Varitek To Re-Sign With Death Star. Yeah. My nerdiness is running amok today. By way of apology, here’s a photo of Jason Varitek and a dolphin.

Don't ask me.

"Mem'ries, like the corners of my mind..."

I missed it in all the hubbub about Brian Cashman’s holiday festiveness/long-awaited mental breakdown, but ESPN announced its replacements for Joe Morgan and Jon Miller yesterday: Bobby Valentine, Dan Shulman, and Orel Hershiser. As, you’ll recall, no fan of Morgan, I am cautiously optimistic.

I was impressed by Hershiser’s work in the shadow of Miller and Morgan last year; I thought that he brought some good solid analysis to the table, and with considerably less bluster than his co-hosts. As for Shulman, I know I must have watched games he’s called before, but I can’t really recall any distinct impressions of the man. Quick Googling reveals that he wears glasses and is Canadian, so clearly we can assume he’s smart and reasonable.

Meanwhile, my fondness for Bobby V turned to pure love the moment he pulled his Groucho glasses stunt, and what I read about his time in Japan a few years ago just reinforced that. Not to mention that, according to him, he invented the wrap sandwich, which should probably put him in the Hall of Fame just by itself. My only concern is that Valentine will dial it down too much on national TV – he never got too wacky or inventive on Baseball Tonight last year, holding back the full force of his personality. But if he can relax and let himself cut loose on camera, he’ll be great, a natural performer.

I only wish I had time to whip up a photoshop image of Shulman, Valentine, and Hershiser’s heads transferred onto the bodies of Ted Danson, Tom Selleck, and Steve Guttenberg. Get on that, please, internet.

I have no idea how Zack Greinke feels about New York City. The word used to be that he did not want to pitch here — because, it was usually implied, all the stress and pressure of New York would be hard on someone dealing with social anxiety disorder and depression, as Greinke famously has. Then came word that someone was saying maybe Greinke actually likes New York after all; followed quickly by word that the Yankees aren’t buying it.

Earlier today, Craig Calcaterra wrote that “our speculation about what Zack Greinke may or may not be able to handle in light of his anxiety disorder is ignorant, silly and in some ways irresponsible,” and “the only ones who know for certain about whether Greinke wants to be in New York and whether his anxiety issues would be triggered by playing there are Zack Greinke and his doctor.” I agree with that, mostly. Practicing amateur psychiatry on someone you’ve never met is rarely an effective practice.

Craig then continues, “To suggest we know better is to suggest that we know the first thing about how anxiety disorder works and how it’s operating in a specific patient. I think I know a lot of stuff, but I don’t believe I know that. Do you?” To which I say, well, yes to the former, though no to the latter. I know extremely little about Greinke, certainly not the specifics of his psychiatric makeup. But I do know quite a bit about depression and anxiety disorder, as both run in my family —  to paraphrase Cary Grant  in Arsenic and Old Lace, they practically gallop.

The idea that New York would be especially bad for someone with Social Anxiety Disorder seems to me completely unfounded. Depression and anxiety are internal matters; they may be triggered to a greater or lesser extent by external factors, but an otherwise healthy person isn’t likely to become clinically depressed because New York features a lot of media attention, while S.A.D. is a disorder precisely because its feelings of anxiety are not reflective of reality. Greinke might find New York stressful or he might not, might like it or not, but it’s unlikely that external factors would determine his mental health. I know plenty of people who deal with anxiety and depression and who find New York much easier to thrive in than their smaller hometowns.

Besides — though this may less true among athletes and sports fans than in the city’s larger culture — few places on earth are more accepting of psychiatry. Not to turn this post into a Woody Allen riff, but our shrink per capita ratio is off the charts, and New Yorkers talk about their therapists about as frequently as they discuss the weather (granted my view is probably a little warped from working in publishing and journalism, where psychotherapy is essentially mandatory).

It’s fun to speculate about Zack Greinke becoming available via trade – really, it’s either that or read more about Derek Jeter’s negotiations, or Brian Cashman’s decision to rappel down a building in an elf costume. (Is anybody else getting a little worried about that guy?). But even aside from the inappropriateness and inutility of attempting to psychoanalyze Greinke, it seems to me too many people have bought into the idea that New York is inherently stressful and requires visitors to bring the best brand of cbd gummies they can find with them, therefore someone with anxiety should not come here. On the contrary. This city accepts anxious migrants from all over the world.

It was going to be Firpo Marberry. Not a lost Marx brother, but an old Senators pitcher, with a catchy nickname he earned by scowling like intimidating boxer Luis Angel Firpo. But then I scoped out his teammates… and I am compelled to award this week’s Player Name of the Week to an entire team:

The 1923 Washington Senators.

Featuring, in addition to Firpo, and to impressive but less excellently named players like Walter Johnson:

• Muddy Ruel
• Joe Judge
• Ossie Bluege
• Goose Goslin
• Nemo Liebold
• Rip Wade
• Patsy Gharrity
• Pinky Hargrave
• Showboat Fisher
• Doc Prothro
• Skipper Friday
• Clay Roe
• Squire Potter

They just don’t build ’em like this anymore. It must’ve been like playing Walter Johnson and the Seven Dwarves. Doc! Pinky! Muddy!

Jane Leavy’s Mickey Mantle biography, which I finished over the holiday weekend, is nothing if not meticulously fair. It features a staggering amount of reporting. Leavy talked to anyone and everyone alive with anything to say about The Mick, and includes all available sides of every story. (Sometimes this can be almost excessive – she expends quite a bit of time and effort, and nearly 20 pages, tracking down the then-teenager who found the ball Mantle hit out of Griffith Stadium in 1953, in an effort to find out just how far the home run had really traveled). The result is a careful and detailed character study that manages to describe all Mantle’s many glories without lionizing him, and all his many faults without demonizing him — no easy feat in either case.

Leavy (who was interviewed by our own Hank Waddles just a few weeks ago) grew up idolizing Mantle; I never got to see him play. I think my earliest real memory of him has to do with my father’s surprised reaction to Mantle’s openness and honesty about his alcoholism and stint at the Betty Ford Clinic in 1994. Leavy’s book details decades of Mantle’s uncontrolled debauchery and downward spiral, which dragged in teammates and friends and lovers and, most upsetting, his entire family. But it also does a good job of explaining why, despite all of that, he was still so beloved, not just by fans but by almost all of those same teammates and friends and lovers and family, no matter how severely he hurt them. She also digs up some new information about possible childhood sexual abuse that, while deeply uncomfortable to contemplate, could explain some of the facets of Mantle that hadn’t previously made much sense.

Fans and columnists today often decry modern players’ lack of privacy, but I can’t help wondering what effect that level of scrutiny might have had on the Mick. Maybe it would have ended his career – then again, maybe it would have saved him decades of suffering; maybe it would have saved his life. Mantle was publicly drunk and inappropriate quite literally hundreds if not thousands of times over his career; the Yankees did nothing more than scold and fine him and the papers never reported it. Today, the tabloids would feast on that kind of story, but at the same time I have to believe that the Yankees or Major League Baseball would’ve pressured him into getting help sooner.

Given all the Jeter-contract shenanigans over the holiday weekend, I couldn’t help drawing some comparisons between Yankee superstars — Mantle held out for better contracts from the Yankees multiple times, and was villainized by reporters and fans as greedy, though the parallels are hardly exact since Derek Jeter made more per base hit last season than Mantle ever got paid in a year. Mantle of course ended up a proud lifelong Yankee and, something I didn’t know, was buried in pinstripes (I still haven’t decided if that’s touching or unsettling; both I suppose). Jeter is as controlled and buttoned-down and sophisticated as Mantle was raw and out of control, although I suppose it’s quite possible that, as with Mantle’s fans back then, we simply don’t know him as well as we think we do.

On that note, I wanted to share one revealing  Jeter-related passage from the book that cracked  me up:

On a flawless spring training day in 2006, arms folded over a slight pinstriped paunch, Reggie Jackson turned away from tracking the flight of one hundred batting-practice hacks to consider the question of Mickey Mantle and white-skin privilege. Forty-five minutes into Jackson’s disquisition, Derek Jeter jogged over to find out what was holding Mr. October’s attention. “We’re just talking about how Mantle would have been remembered if he was black,” Jackson said.

Jeter, a post-racial hero who has perfected the art of public speaking without saying anything at all, executed the patented mid-air pirouette usually reserved for hard-hit balls in the hole and headed in the opposite direction.

Anybody see the 30 Rock episode a few years ago where Liz Lemon suddenly realizes that her doctor boyfriend, played by Jon Hamm, is lacking numerous common-sense everyday skills, but has coasted through life protected from this knowledge by “The Bubble” of his good looks and charm?

I always figured Derek Jeter for something of a PR genius. Almost never a lick of bad press or a public misstep; I assumed he’d worked hard at image maintenance and reaped the rewards. But now it occurs to me: was that really due to skill and intent on Jeter’s part? Or is it possible that, instead, being that he’s Derek Jeter, things have simply fallen into place for him along the way?

See where I’m going with this?

Honestly, I don’t think the Jeter negotiations have gotten all that “nasty” or “ugly” yet, despite the headlines; nothing much worse than “I find their stance baffling” has actually been said thus far, and if you’ve never worked extensively with agents, then trust me, that’s nowhere near their standard for nasty. Still, things could certainly be going smoother, and for the first time in a long time — maybe ever — Jeter seems to be making some tone-deaf and… well, for lack of a better word, baffling public miscalculations.

Unlike Jon Hamm’s Dr. Drew Baird, Jeter is in fact talented and good at his job, and he’s certainly no publicity naïf, either. But I do wonder now if circumstance, and Jeter’s very Jeter-ness, conspired to give him an aura of selflessness, or at least business- and PR-savvy, that he didn’t really do much to earn.

Of course this is only relevant in a contract year, and once Jeter and the Yankees have found some sort of compromise and put this behind him, we can all go back to criticizing Jeter’s defense again and, hopefully, praising his hitting technique. There is nothing remarkable about a team and a star athlete playing hardball in the press (see Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth, for starters). It is only remarkable in this case because we’ve come to expect an ineffable smoothness from Jeter — and now, looking back, I wonder if that may have been in our heads more than it was his actions.

As we saw in 30 Rock, it can be dangerous to pop The Bubble (“Careful, Lemon. You wake a sleepwalker, you risk getting urinated on“). On the plus side it seems safe to assume that whatever happens, unlike Dr. Drew, at least The Captain won’t end up with two hook hands.

(Whether he’ll play shortstop as if he did, though, is another question.)