The Yankees Jeter Conundrum?

The Yankees Jeter Conundrum?.

The Yankees Jeter Conundrum?

The New York Yankees are faced with an interesting free agent decision this off-season. One of the team’s and the sports’ venerable greats, shortstop Derek Jeter’s contract has expired. The face of the franchise for the last 16 years is now 36 and declining in production.  However, Jeter is in a large part responsible for the franchise’s success over those same 16 seasons. He has joined the hallow names of Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, DiMaggio, Berra in Yankee lore.

The Yankees are faced with a seemingly difficult situation but they really have no choice but to resign the icon despite his age and the inevitable in his production, the question is only for how long and how much. Losing Jeter to another franchise would be a public relations disaster, the man has become the Yankees. There is no question Jeter is a great shortstop, there is some question whether his greatness is enhanced by the mere fact that he is Yankee. That is an argument for another time,there is no question however that he has become THE YANKEE to this generation of Yankee fandom. Richard Sandomir‘s excellent piece in the November 9, 2010 New York Times points out that signing Jeter is not just a baseball contract but a branding decision as well as, a concept dear to the Yankee tradition.

 

Sure Jeter’s on the field production will slip but as a commodity Jeter’s stature will grow. Jeter is close to 3,000 career hits (2,926 as of the end of the 2010 season) as he pursues that hallowed mark fans will flock to the stadium to witness his chase. Further the Yankees really don’t have anyone in their system ready to step in and produce as well as Jeter for the next few years. Eduardo Nunez is considered by Baseball America as one of the teams top 10 prospects but he is only 23. Surely the Yankees would not like to have Nunez start his career off in the Bronx as the kid who succeed the unsigned but still relatively production Jeter. Yes Alex Rodriquez can slide over to short again but he is 35. Ramiro Mendoza is on the roster but he is no more than a 33 year old utility player. Certainly the team can throw a Monopoly money contract at a free agent but really who wants to be known in New York as the guy who forced Jeter out of New York. No one that’s who. Nor is there a really good free agent option available right now. Jeter’s iconic status on and off-field insure that fans will want to see him play regardless of his play on the field.

Jeter too has incentive to stay in New York. The man loves New York and is as close the king of New York as one can get. The endorsement possibilities he commands in the New York market and nationally are tied to his identity as a Yankee for life. Additionally, being enshrined in Cooperstown as a career long Yankee has to have great appeal to the man.

But perhaps the most obvious reason for a new Jeter contract with the Yankees is the teams wealth, they can easily afford to pay the iconic Jeter above his actual on the field and market value because they simply can afford to do so. They can expect and will receive postive feedback from their fans, the press in New York and even the press beyond Gotham. So expect a deal to be done with Jeter and done real quick.

YouTube – WWE Raw 3/29/10 Shawn Michaels Leaves The WWE Part 2/2

Wrestling, folks wanna know why do I like pro wrestling.  Well it at its best wrestling is a great show featuring performers with tons of athletic ability putting on a great match.   A great wrestling match rivals great theater, great cinema, great ballet, a great ball game.  Two individuals in the ring telling a great story through physicality, a great match can bring you to the highest highs and the lowest lows in the space of minutes.  A wrestler said in an interview once that wrestlers facing off in the ring are not opponents but partners in a match.  They have to work together to put on a show that we want to believe in.  Sure the outcome is predetermined but when two great wrestlers get in the ring, how they get to the end of the match can be amazing.  Sure there are problems guys dieing young, steroid/HGH abuse but there are is these problems in every facet of society.  Just because the match result is predetermined does not mean it does not hurt, it does.  One indicator for me regarding the credibility of wrestling is the vast number or other athletes; football players, basketball players, hockey players and actors who are fans.

Watch a match featuring Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, Bob Backlund, Nick Bockwinkel, Bret Hart,  Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Ricky Steamboat, Steve Austin, the Rock and many others you will be amazed. These guys could wrestle a mop and you’ll be entertained.

Shawn Michaels just wrestled his last match at Wrestlemania 26 and it was awesome, the clip below is part of farewell to his fans.  Watch it and I dare u not to feel touched.  The go watch a match!!!!!

YouTube – WWE Raw 3/29/10 Shawn Michaels Leaves The WWE Part 2/2.

Why!!!

Why I am doing this?  A blog me, I always thought that blogging was for either wise, intelligent, profound  folks or  windbags who like to hear themselves talk or in this case write.  I never thought nor think of myself as fitting in any of the aforementioned categories.

But now I find myself pondering stuff.  Being an educator/librarian,  I find myself struggling to keep up with the college students I see and talk with every working day. I find myself struggling to keep pace with the never-ending technological change I/we face on college campuses every day, seemingly every minute.  Not to mention the changes wrought in my live outside academia.

I like to think of myself as a technical, computer literate soul, now I’m not so sure.  I find myself struggling to keep up, getting closer to the cliff of old manhood, becoming one of those I used snicker at when I was younger as they struggled to comprehend this new computer stuff intruding into their existence.  Today we are inundated with new stuff every minute, new technology, new ways of doing things,  new ways of entertaining our selves.  I’ve become complacent living in my little cocoon.

I am librarian at Missouri Western State University, been here for five years but I have been a librarian at universities since 1987, that is ages, eons ago. Wow that is 23 stinkin years, longer than most of the students, I see every day, have been alive. Any of you non-librarians reading this must be thinking . “Big whoopee  you sit in a building all day reading books, helping students, what are u complaining about.”  Sorry you are sadly mistaken.  Think how much technology has changed your life, if you have kids, teens,tweens,or twenty somethings, think of their lives and how technologically advanced they are compared to you.  Now ponder for a moment how many books do they read, how do they get information, how do they communicate with each other.  Now try to think how you would deal with 5,000 of them.  How would you teach them and not bore them to tears, how would get them to use quality research information when they can jump on the Internet and find an “answer’ to anything, even though it might not be the correct answer or most reliable source of information.  Welcome to my world!!

So this blog is my attempt to find interesting things that I know little about. Interesting things to help me keep up, to help me be able to teach these “darn kids.”  Since I have other interests they may creep in this space on occasion, bear with me please.  Hopefully along the way you may find my interesting things, interesting also. Let the quest for enlightenment begin.