The WGOM

BP's Joe Sheehan on Derek Jeter swinging at ball 4 (the count was 3-0) last night to try and extend his hitting streak. He has good things to say not only about Jeter, Mr.-I-Don't-Think-About-Individual-Records, as well as some other moments when the quest of personal glory superceded the game itself and one instance where it didn't.

As there is in any Yankees telecast, there was praise for Jeter as a player who is a winner, who does the little things, etc.; what there wasn’t was any discussion, at all, as to the merits of his chasing ball four on a 3-0 count for no reason other than personal advancement. I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened had another player, a less popular one, one not anointed by the baseball press, taken the same tack in trying to extend his hitting streak.

How about this one?

I think about Randy Johnson, whose 20-win season in 1997 is as legitimate as Will Carroll’s endorsement of hair-care products. In the 161st game of the year, with the Mariners having locked up the AL West, the 19-4 Johnson was inserted into a 7-2 game in the fifth inning and threw two innings of shutout relief. By game’s end, the scoring rules dictated that he be given the win, and forever branded "20-game winner."

By contrast:

It was hard for me to not think about Mike Cameron. Back in 2002, Cameron hit four home runs in his first four at-bats in a game against the White Sox. He was hit by a pitch his fifth time up, and then went to 3-0 in his final AB. Despite it being a 15-4 game, and despite his chance at immortality hanging in the balance, Cameron took the 3-0 pitch. I gained a lot of respect for Cameron in that moment, and I think it’s an interesting contrast to Jeter’s seventh-inning hack last night.

A minor point to be sure. But, the next time you hear Jeter say in regard to the batting title that he's "not even thinking about it" your first thought shouldn't be "Wow, what a selfless guy." Your first thought should be, "That's a line of bullpuckey being fed to me to perpetuate the myth of Jeter as the spotless hero." If he's swinging at ball four when the count is 3-0 to extend a hitting streak, then he's most definitely thinking about that batting title. I'm not saying there's anything wrong about it, I'd be thinking about it, too. Since I don't really put much value in a hitting streak, I wouldn't be swinging on 3-0 at a pitch out of the strike zone. But, Jeter would.

I'm not writing for The Onion.

Eric Mack of CBS Sportsline weighs in on the A-Rod situation.

Hey, Yankee fans, be careful what you boo for.

It was once said here -- before Operation: Lightning-Rod kicked into hate alert -- those who boo A-Rod for his perceived failures in the clutch are ... well, we used a word perhaps too strong for some of you. We said morons.

But look what you damn Yankee folks have done.

You have Armando Benitez'd one of the greatest -- perhaps the greatest -- players of our generation. Melted him down to a psychological mess, much like that former Mets closer.

What is it with you player-hating New Yorkers anyway?

Yankee fans -- the worst in baseball.

Mack continues:

Perhaps you should start booing a player the Yankees are actually paying more for: Derek Jeter, at $20.6M. No one is booing Jeter for his less-than-A-Rod pace of 10 homers, which would be a career low, 99 RBI and 108 runs. He is getting paid MORE money by the Yankees than A-Rod.

We understand the need to boo. It's a necessary form of fan feedback and disapproval.

But if you can't bring yourself to boo the kingly Yankees captain who hasn't won a World Series since the Clinton administration, and you have to boo someone?

Boo, or punch, the fan next to you who has relegated this future Hall of Famer to a cautionary tale.

Jeter can do no wrong. A-Rod no right. We get it.

But you're getting what you're booing for. Red Sox fans, who once almost had A-Rod on their hands and books, are laughing at you for it.

Enjoy it, dummies.

Mack is obviously a reader of the World's Greatest Online Magazine.

Hall-of-Famer Brooks Robinson says what I've been thinking. A-Rod is the best. Robinson:

I was watching TV last night and I really had to laugh at the guy who said he might be traded. There's no way in the world that A-Rod is going to go anywhere. If they don't have A-Rod, they don't win.

Then, Robinson speaks a truth loud and clear:

[Robinson] says Rodriguez's contract -- for a record $252 million -- has brought more pressure on him in recent years. Also, Rodriguez is playing alongside shortstop Derek Jeter, who has achieved iconic status after leading the Yankees to four World Series titles.

"Jeter is their guy, like I was Baltimore's guy," Robinson said. "Jeter is a terrific player too, but that's just the way fans are. No matter how bad Jeter would go, I don't think they'd ever say a negative word about him."

Robinson figures it's only a matter of time before all these struggles subside for Rodriguez.

"I just hate to see them get on him the way they get on him, no matter what he does. The guy wins ballgames for you, and he's just having a tough streak, and there's no doubt in my mind he's taking it to the plate right now," Robinson said. "When you make that kind of money, people expect you to go out there 162 games and be the best player in the league 162 days. Well, that's just not the way it works."

People booing and ripping A-Rod are blockheads. I don't care about the contract or what he says or whether he wants to be liked by everyone. That's so much bullshit. He's the best player in the game. Fans who boo him don't deserve him. And if Jeter were the leader that everyone says he is, he'd step up and tell the fans to cool it, just like Robinson did. But, something tells me that he (maybe not so) secretly enjoys seeing A-Rod suffer.

I read a column by Rob Neyer the other day in which he postulated that Derek Jeter could pass Hank Aaron on the all-time hits list. For those of you that don't know, Hank Aaron is third on the all-time list with 3,771 hits. Jeter just got his 2,000th hit last week. So, Neyer is saying he has a chance to get another almost 1,800 hits. I'm not thinking he'll get there. I had thought about writing about this but I thought better of it. Then I read this by Jayson Stark:

I'm surprised more people haven't caught on to how Rose-ian a career Jeter has had. He's now 1,575 games into his career -- and he has 2,004 career hits. That's 35 more hits than Rose had 1,575 games into his own career. And how old was Rose at that point? He was 32, the same age Jeter hits this month.

Jeter has four 200-hit seasons. Rose had five at this point. But they have precisely the same number of 190-plus-hit seasons (seven) and precisely the same number of seasons with 150-plus games played (also seven). So Jeter couldn't possibly be more on track to charge into the 4,000 Hit Club.

4000 hits! Christ Almighty! Are they serious?

Through his 31 year old season, Jeter had 1,936 hits. The tenth best through the 31 year season was Sam Crawford, who had 2,103, almost 200 more hits than Jeter. To get to 4000 hits, Jeter will need 2,064 hits. Only three players in history have had more than 2,064 hits after of their 31 year old season. I find it extremely unlikely that Jeter will get to 4,000 hits. He'd have to average 190 hits a year until he is 42 to get there. Highly unlikely. Only five four players have gotten the 1,835 hits he'll need to get to Hank Aaron. That's unlikely, too.

In short, it's extremely unlikely that Jeter, who isn't even close to the top ten in hits to this point in his career will be in the top five all-time from this point further. That hasn't stopped the non-stop love fest from speculating that Jeter could reach numbers that are almost unreachable. The lovefest goes on.

Update: I forgot to put my thought on the Stark column. Either he's stealing from Neyer or there's an effort afoot to push a Jeter-for-4,000-hits meme going on. I watched an inning or two of the Red Sox/Yankees game last night and I didn't hear it, but then again it was Rick Sutcliffe. He just gushed about Jeter all night long even though he wasn't playing.