They apparently have no problem with Jeter faking a HBP. I agree it’s not his fault the ump blew the call, be he (and ALL atheletes) have a responsibility to have integrity.
Why?
Saying “athletes aren’t role models” is facile, I think. They are. Kids emulate them and look up to them. Why shouldn’t they? They’re the best at what they do and they get paid to do something fun. Some people say that shouldn’t be the case and point out all the flaws, and I sympathize with most of those arguments. But I’m not sure I can imagine pretending to be hit by a pitch as a moral issue.
I am a Red Sox fan and really have no problem with what Jeter did. Where was the uproar when Jason Donald took his place at first base after Gallaraga clearly beat him to the bag and Jim Joyce missed the call?
The only reason this is getting any attention today is that it’s a Yankee doing what every single other player would have done in the same situation.
It’s not like he tried slapping the ball out of a glove or anything…
You’re right. EVERYONE says A-Rod would be getting KILLED if it were him.
The general consensus among the talking heads is that it is Jeter’s duty to get on base “any way he can.”
So pretty much every punter in organized football has no integrity, because they’ll drop like they’ve been shot if you fart in their general direction, trying to draw the flag for roughing the kicker?
Or sticking to baseball, should pitchers be required to correct the umpire? “Nah, that wasn’t really a strike. I missed the plate by a good 2 inches. Please call it a ball and correct the count.”
A runner should say “Yeah, the throw beat me by half a step. I’m out.”?
Uh, yes?
I mark a significant difference between accepting the call given by the umpire and outright faking to provoke an incorrect call.
But that’s exactly what Jeter did! He enhanced the situation with his performance to influence the ump to give him a walk. What’s the difference?
The difference is the faking.
Man, Rysto, you must HATE soccer.
And dislike hockey quite intensely.
I agree with the OP. Integrity is more important than winning a game. Character is who you are when nobody is watching, well I guess this is who Derek Jeter is with 40,000 people watching.
And it has nothing to do with who it is or what team he plays for. I saw a Red Sox game several years ago. The batter hit a blooper to shallow right. The Red Sox first baseman went running up the line for the catch; the umpire following after him to make the call. The ball was just over the fielder’s head and landed a foot or two inside the line; but his body was blocking the ump from seeing the ball hit the turf. The fielder made a gesture with his right arm and the ump called it a foul ball.
He was a liar, too.
I’m still not convinced that we’d even hear about this if you replaced Derek Jeter with, say, John Bowker.
The difference is that in hockey that kind of stuff will get you later on. Or one of your teammates.
The problem with this particular incident is not that he faked it, its that he did it so badly. I watched the highlight and heard the ball hit the bat. Plus his overacting, plus his getting caught on camera grinning about it before taking his base.
MY problem is that there was a time when Jeter would have paid the price for his actions and he wouldn’t have complained about it when it happened. But now when he takes a fast ball to the ribs or head, he won’t get up and go to first base. NO, the pitcher will be ejected after a bench clearing “brawl” that will be an embarrassment to every playground slap fight in history. Players used to police these shenanigans themselves.
It wouldn’t. The reaction from within the MLB world shows that this is common. That’s not necessarily an excuse for Jeter if you think it’s an ethical issue, but from a baseball standpoint this is a bunch of hot air.
Eh. It worked on the umpire.
It’s nothing new for the benches to clear. And I don’t have a problem with the warnings and ejections. What’s annoying to me is that these days, if Derek Jeter gets hit (for real), a Yankees pitcher will “retaliate” by plunking someone else even if the HBP was an accident. I don’t think that happened in days gone by, and it’s stupid. It’s one thing to throw at someone if a pitcher intentionally hits someone on your team. If it’s an accidental hit, that’s ridiculous.
The comments of a number of people in this thread suggests that they would regard diving and faking in soccer as perfectly legitimate. However, the great majority of soccer fans and commentators hate the faking. There is much more support for what Jeter did than a diving soccer player would get.
Are there any penalties that could have been imposed on Jeter had the umpire detected the faking? Soccer players are yellow-carded (two in a game and the player is sent off, followed by a suspension for a number of games).
I don’t like Jeter or the Yankees but I’ve got no problem with him faking getting hit. Playing the umpire is no different then trying to rub a DB on the umpire in football. Sure its not the pure thing to do but the refs are part of the game and I’m ok with them being used as such. It really is no different from a guy trapping a ball and celebrating the catch again perfectly ok in my book.
Diving happens a lot more, and it’s usually more blatant if anything.
Not as far as I know.
I was regarding diving as being a subset of faking and therefore included.
I was trying to say that there seems to be a lot more faking in soccer (primarily diving) than in baseball. On the other hand there are a lot of complaints about foul calls in the NBA, which can be influenced by player gamesmanship and such.
Oh, definitely - but I think that is because there are many more opportunities. How often would there be an opportunity to pull a Jeter? Maybe once every 5 or 10 games? There are probably 50+ opportunities per soccer game to take a dive.