Whenever someone twangs Jeter in some funny way that gets the True Believers frothing at the mouth, an angel gets his wings.

I’m just waiting for Jim Ross to post the following over there.

“OH MY GOD!  Is that Cap’n Jeter’s music I hear?!?!?!”

I’m going to try to write this without sounding like the fanboy.  I am a Yankee fan.  I am a Derek Jeter fan.  I recently bought his book “The Life You Imagine” for my daughter.  It’s full of everything you want your child to emulate. 

Could it all be true about the sign, but the Yankees asked him to give it back so that they could give it to him properly?  Could he have said “no”?  I suppose, but that wouldn’t make sense.

He obviously doesn’t need me defending him, but it does tweak me some that most of the overly good and overly bad press he gets is not born out of the way he talks and acts.

/steps off soap box he didn’t really want to be on in the first place

Wow!  Those are some real knuckleheads over there. People like that make it tough to admit to being a Yankee fan.  What percentage of Yankee fans are complete morons?  Or is the small percentage just very vocal?

Ok, I decided to read some of the comments on the NBC site.  My favorite by far was the commentor that asked if you could be guilty of “liable”[sic]
Good stuff.

But I do believe that it’s possible that he took the sign and gave a wink and some words to the reporter. At some point later, the Yankees told him they were going to have a ceremony giving players some stuff from the old stadium and wanted to present him with the sign.  He would have no choice but to agree.

Obviously this is hypothetical, but also at least, I think, a conceivable story that would prove that it wasn’t Jeter himself that was trying for self promotion/aggrandizement.

Craig, thanks for that post.  My immediate thought was that in the battle of wits, the attackers would be bringing knives to a gunfight.  Over the first 50 or so posts, I realized they were bringing, at best, rotten tomatoes to a gunfight.  Now I realize that’s an insult to rotten tomatoes.

Attention villages everywhere—if you’re missing an idiot, please check the CTB comment threads.

Hey, that last post was definitely not me, and I doubt if the imposter knows the secret handshake.
This has been a fun day and from the start a lot of people fell for the old editorial trick of offering 2 choices in response to a debate when “something else” is the proper answer.
The Times article was a feel good feature piece that reviewed what OYS meant to various players over an 85 year history. Nothing more, nothing less. The bulk of Yankee fans support our team for it’s traditions, busness-like atmosphere with a spirit of comradary among the players and dedication to the fans.  Those who appreciate quality realize this goal.
The average mind talks about people
The thoughtful mind talks about events
The superior mind talks about ideas

Today . . . I consider myself . . . the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.

I actually read every single comment. I get them automatically emailed to me. Sure, if it’s just a screed I skim and delete it pretty quickly, but I see it all.

The negativity really doesn’t bother me. Unlike here, I really don’t write there expecting a meaningful dialogue. I get one from time to time and when I do I’m very happy, but I keep my expectations low and don’t let the bad stuff bother me. I know, based on the numbers, that the people who are reacting negatively are dwarfed by the number of people simply reading.  I don’t set out to be a jackass (most of the time anyway), but the day I write something provocative and fail to get a reaction is the day I’ll start feeling bad about things.

Wow, my third comment here, I must really care about this, and that’s a little sad.

I want to take you a little to task on cherry-picking the comments that you responded to today.  It seems you responded to easy marks and/or compliments when there were many (gasp, even better than mine) very well articulated arguments against your post.  I realize you can only respond to a fraction of them, but I would think you would respond to those that spent some time thinking before responding.

One more angle.  I do think “thief” is too strong a term, and yes, I know what the definition is.  In this situation, I still don’t think it holds. 

Question. At the end of the year, if Joe Mauer takes his name plate from his Metrodome locker and puts it in his trophy case at home, will you think of him as a thief?  I wouldn’t, and for the same reason I don’t think Jeter is a “thief”.

And since he admitted taking it, that makes him a truthful person.

So my answer(opinion) to your question, “Derek Jeter: a liar or a thief,” is “no”.