VERDUCCI JUST DRAGGED JETER INTO THE AROD MESS

"Rodriguez brought his fraudulency to the Yankees next, and with it came the discomfort caused by being teammates with Jeter. People speculated that their friction stemmed from a 2001 Esquire article in which Rodriguez took an unsolicited shot at Jeter, saying, 'Jeter's been blessed with talent around him. He never had to lead. He can just go play and have fun. And he hits second -- that's totally different than third or fourth in a lineup. You go into New York, you wanna stop Bernie [Williams] and [Paul] O'Neill. You never say, 'Don't let Derek beat you.' He's never your concern.'"

The article didn't help, especially for a guy like Jeter, who demands cold-blooded loyalty. But associates of Jeter knew what also bothered Jeter was Rodriguez's PED use, a whispered secret among players. It wasn't so much the popular comparison among the AL shortstops -- Jeter, Rodriguez, Miguel Tejada and Nomar Garciaparra -- in which people (including Rodriguez himself) degraded Jeter for his relative lack of power, his price for playing the game clean. It was that Jeter knew the two of them were wired so differently, with Rodriguez choosing the deceit of steroids to play the game."

That quote is from Tom Verducci in his SI piece HERE,  and my only question is... are you seriously bringing Derek Jeter into this? Why make it worse?

I have told you here at Bleeding Yankee Blue that the whole PEDs thing is icky to me. The media starts to call the users villains, (They're not, they're cheaters, there's a difference), and with players being fingered and some accepting their suspension and ARod not, yet, not admitting to NOT using. Meanwhile, the ones who accept are now considered guilty and some of them even previously denied any use. It's a circus and a mess.  One thing I won't stand for though is acting like a victim, like Alex did in his press conference.  The second thing I won't do is stand for people like Tom Verducci, whom I respect, dragging our Captain into it.  All this does is allow people to look at what  he wrote and suggest, "Well, Jeter knew Alex Rodriguez was using, could he be an accomplice?"  Jeter is sacred to Yankee fans, to baseball and it's wrong.  You know how people are, this PEDs story has legs and Verducci just added a few legs to it, putting Jeter and PEDs in the same sentence.

Look at that fool Skip Bayless last season when he "didn't say" Jeter was using but was basically saying there is no way he could be "that good" without dabbling.  Read SHAME ON SKIP BAYLESS for context on that.   Now, I'm not comparing Verducci with Bayless. They are on different levels, but Verducci was trying to be provocative here and I don't appreciate it. This time being provocative at the Captain's expense was wrong.   I would assume that Jeter doesn't like it either and you know what? You shouldn't either.

There are certain players that were and are good for the game of baseball.  Cal Ripken Jr... Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter and of course... in generations before me, there were several too.  Jackie Robinson for example.  Look, I'm not going to keep naming names, you get the idea.  I just didn't appreciate the tone of Verducci's piece is all and wanted to point it out.

Did Tom mean anything by it? Probably not, unless you consider "clicks" a crime, but throwing Jeter into the PEDs mess... it's' not needed... trust me, we have enough to talk about. Keep the Captain out of it!

What do you think? Comment.

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