Stop Bashing Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter’s final season is winding down to a close. Tomorrow Sunday will be the last game the New York Yankee shortstop ever plays, and the way I’m seeing it, his career has been a pretty darned good one.

In a 20 year career (but given that he only played 15 games in his 1st year and 17 games in his 19th year, let’s say it’s more like an 18 year career), with only a game to go, he is likely going to end up with a .309 career batting average, at least 3463 hits, 260 home runs, 1923 runs scored and 1310 RBI’s. He will have made 14 All Star games, and will have won five World Championships. In nearly all major league baseball experts’ opinions, he is likely to be a cinch Hall of Famer the very first year he is eligible.

So, why is there this unofficial groundswell campaign on websites and message boards across the Internet going on to rip him, to discredit him and to BASH him to a degree that is way out of proportion to what his career numbers should warrant?

To understand where I am coming from, I am not a Derek Jeter fan or a New York Yankee fan. I am not a hater (man, I hate that word) of him or any of the competitors he plays against. I have no agendas here. I am just a baseball fan who appreciates good players and likes to point out the good, the bad and the ugly of the game and to give takes and commentaries about certain statistical and career stuff that needs to be mentioned.

So why do people feel the need to bash Jeter?

I think that the people who feel the need to show Internet disrespect for players like Derek Jeter are saying a whole lot more about themselves than they are saying about the subject of their comments. Usually, it’s in the form of an anonymous insult that no one would dare to say to a person directly to their face. It’s spoken by people who probably have never played the game at anything near the level of a Derek Jeter. They are probably people who have probably never accomplished much of anything in their lives. In their own delusional way, they can think they are as good as or better than the stars they are knocking, building up their esteem in a classic pattern of anonymously slighting others. In other words, it’s just the opinions of someone who you would never invite into your own home.

It really is an Internet phenomenon, this trolling through the Internet message boards. These people, who live amongst the rest of us during daytime, but who troll around on the Internet at night, will continue to do what they do as long as there is the cover of anonymity. So all we can do as readers of the comments section is to know what is happening when it is happening and to not give them the benefit of giving their opinions any validity.

You can’t argue with the person who feeds on getting into sparring matches. They can go as low as it takes to make themselves feel important. So what you have left to do is follow the high road. Read what’s out there and intelligently form your own opinions and don’t give the people any credibility until they have earned it.

In other words, as much as it would be nice if people would stop bashing people like Derek Jeter in the online opinion world, the reality is that those types of comments will continue to be expressed. But those opinions are only as credible as you, the viewer, allow them to be. Jeter’s numbers and body of work suggest that he has had a stellar career. Give the man his due,