NOT EVERYONE CAN BE A YANKEE

As a native New Yorker, one of my favorite activities is to watch New York News, particularly the sports segment and skim the pages of the latest edition of one its tabloids.  Like many New York sports fans, I look forward to the back page headlines about Jeter, Robinson Cano, and Mark Teixeira.  The cleverly worded, creative juxtaposition of fact and fiction that even if only for a day, tells the New York audience and perhaps even the world that something profound, something amazing, or something dreadful happened to one of our teams, or one of our players.  Not everyone can take the criticism dealt by today’s finest reporters who by trade are trained to investigate, probe, and cover today’s teams intimately, professionally, and uniquely. 

Take for a moment our favorite son, Derek Jeter, who recently underwent two interesting media angles- Skip Bayless’ steroid implication and an interview with ESPN’s Rick Reilly, which launched the now famous “Hit or Miss” article.  In the Bayless situation, Jeter quickly shot back, read HERE.  BYB went off about the implication from Bayless (Read SHAME ON SKIP BAYLESS), we found it ridiculous. And when it came to Reilly, the article may have “baited” Jeter to “miss” when asked if he would ever change teams, read HERE.  No one ever doubted that Jeter loves to play baseball, and that he exemplifies the famous, “I’d like to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee” quote.  It was just a hypothetical question, and after the interview, Jeter went back to doing what he does best- hit.  Yankee fans, the true ones, like us, really paid no mind to it, chalking it up to just another media angle. 

Sometimes these kind of angles rattle players who come to New York after playing for smaller market teams.  Take for example, AJ Burnett, who for the last two seasons with the Yankees had a miserable 5.20 ERA with a record of 21-26.  When the trade to Pittsburgh was official, Burnett said “he is very glad to be getting away from the New York Yankees.”  Blaming the team for “tinkering with his pitching”, perhaps what he was really saying was that he couldn’t take being in the media hot seat, read HERE.

Future hall of famer, Randy Johnson, couldn’t make it in New York either.  His two seasons with the Yankees were not memorable ones.  “It seems that he just didn't know what he was in for when coming to New York,” according to 2010 article published in the Bleacher Report, HERE.

ARod has handled the sometimes not so friendly New York press like a champ.  He had a little trouble swallowing some of the comments made this summer by his friend and former Yankee Reggie Jackson, who was never afraid of any type of controversy in his career.  According to the Sports Illustrated article, Reggie Can Still Cause a Stir (HERE), “Jackson knows what makes for a sexy story and what makes reporters turn their tape recorders off, and so he gives a warning.”  Condemning A-Rod for his steroid use, Jackson’s comments caused more hurt to A-Rod than any of us.  To us, it is a story, a headline soon forgotten as A-Rod goes back to work. 

The difference between Jeter and A-Rod vs. Burnett and Johnson: Thick skin and a high tolerance for New York media.  Not everyone can be a Yankee and not everyone can make it to the Yankees, but when they do, they need to know how to navigate fans, traffic, and yes, the media.
 

--Suzie Pinstripe, BYB Opinion Columnist
Twitter: @suzieprof





Please comment, we have DISQUS, it's easier than ever. Let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.