The Derek Jeter Outrage and the Morality Police

Being busy at work means that it takes me a while to weigh in on topics recently, but the outrage over the Derek Jeter hit-by-pitch "incident" ("HBP-gate"?) was worth waiting to comment on. Like the Mariano Rivera "spitting on the ball" video in the ALCS last season, any chance to take down Jeter or Rivera are blown completely out of proportion (the media loves the "aha" moments). But the vitriol over this latest Jeter incident was extremely, well, disturbing. Baseball--in sports in general--are not won by the nice guys in search of a gentleman's game; those games are won by those who go the extra inch and do what it takes to succeed. And usually we applaud our players for doing that: the Derek Jeter flip play or his hustle to first base on every ground ball are repeated over and over again when people mark him as a True Yankee. So it seems incongruous (to me at least) to laud our players for doing everything they can to win and then we blast them when it offends our morality.

Derek Jeter's "acting" bothered many (NYT)

But such is the ways of the "Morality Police." We seem to have no problem with catchers who frame pitches, middle infielders who don't actually touch second on a double play, first baseman who go to throw the ball around the horn when they know the guy is safe on the bang-bang play at first, or outfielders who feign like they're going to catch the ball to get a runner to hold up a bit on first on a sure double to stop him from scoring. But hey, the home plate umpire says Derek Jeter is hit by a pitch and he sells it by hopping around in the box for a while and suddenly he's a desperate cheater. Jeez, no wonder criminals are all wearing Yankee hats (Slate wonderfully calls bogus on that).

ESPN's Rob Neyer says to indict baseball rather than Jeter. Why does anyone need to be indicted (except maybe the lack of Instant Replay)? Does a hitter who gets a favorable ball call from an ump when he bails out of the way even though it's never going to hit him have to get up and say to the ump: "you know what, that was nowhere close to me"? No. How about an outfielder who tries to sell a liner he knows he obviously trapped? Not a chance. But hey, Derek Jeter's dramatics were "over the line". People are killing Jeter for not getting on base (and rightfully so) and now that he finds his way there through a little embellishment of his own, people are suddenly up in arms? It was bad acting and, really, probably not going to help Jeter's re-election campaign for Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year".

I can understand Yankee haters jumping on the bandwagon to bash Jeter (they love any chance they get), but Jeter's "sleight of wrist trick" wasn't even defended by most Yankee fans. I was told that it was "bush league" and showed how desperate Jeter is at this point in his career. But maybe that "desperation" is actually creativity. At the end of David Cone's career, he had lost a blow-it-by-you fastball and had to improvise. So he would change his arm angle at times to deceive hitters. As Bill James wrote this week in Slate (before there was any Derek Jeter incident)--in a post which had the subheading "In defense of Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, jaywalkers, and all the other scofflaws that make America great."--we loved that creativity and we, as Americans love all types of creativity. But the morality police have struck and made certain types of creativity and "outlandish" behavior sports-talk/blog/newspaper fodder (though some were as shocked as me at the reaction).

And yet Gaylord Perry is in the Hall of Fame with a spitball that he admitted had more slobber on it than dog-caught home runs in The Sandlot. If a guy gets Tommy John surgery and comes back with increased velocity, we're amazed and appreciate science. We love things like the hidden ball trick. But "steroids" and "HGH" and any other type of cheating is automatic jail time. As a Yankee fan, would we have liked Carl Pavano more if he had used PEDs, won us a World Series and then been exposed as a cheater? We hate him because he didn't compete and we perceive he didn't go the extra step to help his team win. But Derek Jeter did just that and we he's a "bush league" player? I'm not saying that you shouldn't be outraged by what Derek Jeter did (you're free to think what you want), but think about it twice before you take the advice of a baseball writer who tells you that you should be upset.

Not that this is something dedicated only to baseball or only to sports. Deadspin pointed out last week that Tony Dungy has taken his role as the Morality Police on the NFL. Glenn Beck is a big proponent of telling people how they should feel in the political world. I've been told so many times how I should feel about "The Ground Zero Mosque" that I feel like I'm actually in Tehran surrounded by the real Morality Police.

The funny part is that, as Ben Shpigel wrote for the New York Times, that most people who actually play the sport just shrugged it off. And like with everything else (including his upcoming contract negotiations), the barometer on Derek Jeter's season will be read after the postseason. If Derek Jeter hits .500 in the postseason and helps the Yankees win the World Series again, "HBP-gate" will be forgotten (most forget the 1951 Giants stole signs because Bobby Thomson hit the "Shot Heard 'Round the World"). But until that time, let's leave Jeter's reputation untarnished and realize maybe it's time for all of us to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity because the Morality Police have sure gotten to many of us.