9 comments Ten Things I Think I Think Peter King Has Not Thought Of: Derek Jeter You Are A-Rod's Only Hope Edition

I am not sure how I am going to top yesterday's post with Gregg Easterbrook's idiotic analysis on the Super Bowl, but I am sure going to try. I still have no idea what game he was watching Sunday night, because I am pretty sure it was not the Super Bowl 100 million other people watched. The sad part is that he was actually attending the Super Bowl, so he was probably at an intermural women's softball game and was so busy looking at the heavens for the aliens to come get Kurt Warner he did not know where he was. Regardless, I have a build up of articles I want to comment or mock, so here we go. By the way, if anyone out there has suggestions on how to stop a full court press, please send them to me and I will forward them along to my favorite college basketball team. They need help with this.

1. Much like Princess Leia needing Obiwan Kenobi (I'm a blogger and that is a Star Wars reference...cliche alert!), Wallace Matthews thinks Derek Jeter is Alex Rodriguez's only hope. Hope for what? I have no idea what the problem is, let's see what Wallace thinks.

The official story is that nearly eight years ago, Alex Rodriguez implied in a magazine story that Derek Jeter's place in a batting order coincided perfectly with the number on his back. Jeter was a No. 2 hitter, A-Rod seemed to be saying to Esquire back then, nothing more and nothing less, and to this day, Jeter hasn't forgiven him for it.

As the Yankees Turn, will return in a minute, but first a message from our corporate sponsors...

I think the New York writers feed off the Bronx Zoo personality the Yankees seem to have and they also try to perpetuate this idea as much as possible. Any little thing gets blown up, and I used to think it was because it was New York and there is so much media located there, but now I just think the writers like the drama.

Because only Jeter can clean up the mess Joe Torre has made of the Yankees' clubhouse.

Yes, only Derek Jeter can do this......b-b-but why only Derek Jeter and not Joe Girardi, Mariano Rivera, or Jorge Posada? Simply because he is the captain of the team?

The book is out today. Time to start reading. And he doesn't even have to read it to come out and say, simply: "Alex is my teammate. Alex is our guy. Everyone in this clubhouse stands behind him."

Here's the thing, maybe Jeter doesn't feel like he needs to start defending A-Rod against what Joe Torre said in the book or maybe his teammates used to call him A-Fraud, but they do not anymore, and Jeter does not want to bring this up again. I don't get why everyone has to deny every allegation and silence means people get to assume what they want.

Jeter is supposed to be the captain of all the Yankees, not just of Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera and whichever other guys he happens to like.

Maybe Jeter has told A-Rod all of these things that Wallace seems to think A-Rod needs to hear. My real question is why does Jeter have to do this? Why should anyone in the Yankee clubhouse really care if the general public thinks they like A-Rod or not, as long as A-Rod knows the team supports him?

The answer I have is if someone doesn't come out and make a statement, the media in New York is going to keep hounding Jeter and A-Rod on this issue. It's almost like Wallace Matthews knows the media is going to blackmail those two with articles about how they don't get along, unless Jeter comes out and publicly supports A-Rod. This is all very stupid.

The Yankees can win without Torre but not without A-Rod.

Actually the Yankees won 4 World Series with Joe Torre as manager and have won zero with A-Rod as a player on the team. So this assumption is actually very, very wrong.

For the good of his team, Captain Jeter had better choose which side of this argument he is on in a hurry.

Sure, Jeter has come out and defended other players on the team, but I don't see the need to come out and immediately defend A-Rod on this issue. To come out and make a public statement means there was some sort of truth potentially to Joe Torre's book in regards to the treatment and feelings about A-Rod when he came to the Yankees. Maybe Jeter doesn't like A-Rod so he doesn't feel like defending him. Either way, this is going to have a small effect on the team this year when it comes time to playing games, unless the media doesn't let the issue drop, which it looks like will not happen.

But it's the right thing to do, especially if, like Jeter, you call yourself a captain and fancy yourself a leader.

Maybe Jeter is being a leader and by not coming out and supporting A-Rod he is leading the other 23 guys in the locker room to show he is on their side.

Time, at long last, for the No. 2 hitter in the Yankees' lineup to be the cleanup hitter in the Yankees' clubhouse.

Is A-Rod really this fragile that Jeter not coming out and supporting him would ruin his self esteem or does the New York media just want to hear Jeter say he likes A-Rod because it will give them another weeks worth of stories? I vote for the latter.

At some point, maybe everyone can realize that Jeter possibly is not that great of a captain. Not only when A-Rod came to New York did he not volunteer to play third base, but he also has supported Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens publicly and not A-Rod publicly. It doesn't really matter in the long run, but Jeter cares too much about how he is perceived, at least that is what I think, and I think he has some natural rivalry going with A-Rod and if he supported him publicly, it may make him seem weak. My theory probably sucks but I still don't see why it really matters if Jeter publicly supports A-Rod and I am not 100% sure why A-Rod needs support.

2. Peter King tends to be a huge apologist for others (i.e. Brett Favre), so I don't know why it shocks me he plays company man for the NFL in talking about the Kurt Warner "fumble."

McGrath had around 90 seconds from the time of the loose ball to examine the replays to see if McAulay needed to examine the call himself -- and McGrath judged, and was later backed by the league, that officials on the field made the correct judgment that Warner fumbled before his arm started going forward.

Oh, I didn't know McGrath's decision was backed by the NFL, that makes my opinion completely different. The NFL has no reason to not back the guy, McGrath, who decided the head referee should not review the final play of the game that decided the winner of the Super Bowl. It was only the last play in the biggest game of the year. No review needed for that.

I am being sarcastic, but seriously, would anyone expect the NFL to come out and not back the decision not to have this play reviewed? If the NFL second guesses the decision all hell breaks loose and thousands of columns are written about how instant replay needs to be changed and the Cardinals could really have won the Super Bowl. The fact the NFL supported the decision doesn't tell me anything that would change my opinion. It changes Peter King's though.

I wish McGrath had given McAulay a look. But I don't believe McGrath made the wrong call.

Seriously, if you wish McAulay had gotten a look at the play, then you don't believe McGrath made the right call. If Peter wished McAulay had gotten a look at the play, there is no way he can actually believe McGrath made the right call.

The Giants' 20-19 stunner of Buffalo in Supe XXV was a keepaway game with great strategic stuff by Bill Parcells and his coordinators, Bill Belichick and Ron Erhardt, but a missed field goal as the signature play isn't how the best Super Bowl game should be remembered.

Peter thinks the greatest Super Bowl ever should be remembered by a controversial fumble call, that is so much better than the best game ever being decided by an actual football play.

This game had Roethlisberger emerging as a no-doubt, unquestioned clutch star; he has the body build of Terry Bradshaw with the play-making escapability of Steve Young.

Roethlisberger: 6 foot 5 inches, 241 pounds

Bradshaw: 6 foot 3 inches, 215 pounds

They are not exactly similar...and I don't believe Roethlisberger is 241 pounds. Maybe 10-15 pounds heavier than that.

As one of the MVP voters, I changed three times in the last 10 minutes.

If this does not instill confidence in his ability to choose an MVP for the Super Bowl, nothing should.

I went from Harrison when the Steelers were up 20-7 to Fitzgerald when it was 23-20, Arizona, with more than a few thoughts about Warner. Then, as Pittsburgh went downfield for the winning score, I had dueling thoughts of Roethlisberger and Holmes in my head.

It's weird how a player's value goes up and down as the game goes along. All of a sudden Warner is not the most valuable player on the field, not because of anything he did, but because his team was no longer winning. I guess that is how it goes but it still feels arbitrary to me.

It's probably crazy, but I would have picked Roethlisberger had Holmes made a simple catch in the end zone.

Not probably crazy, definitely crazy. If Roethlisberger had thrown a simple pass, he would have been more valuable, but because he threw a more difficult pass and Holmes caught the ball, now Holmes is more valuable.

Roethlisberger doesn't get credit for scrambling around and keeping plays alive but Holmes gets credit for a defender falling down earlier in the game.

Completing 70 percent in any Super Bowl is magnificent, but completing two of his throws after circus-type escape acts from the Cardinal D, and then driving his team 88 yards in the 58th, 59th and 60th minutes on the biggest drive of his life ... huge. Just huge.

But not as huge as catching the game winning catch. This is like giving John Taylor the MVP award in 1988 for catching the game winning catch and ignoring what Jerry Rice did that day.

From Hari Kannan of Nashville: "Thanks for your column every week Peter. I'm wondering how the outcome of this game will affect Kurt Warner's Hall of Fame credentials in your eyes. Before the game, several writers implied that if he won the Super Bowl, it would make him a serious contender for the Hall.

He's had five terrific, Hall-caliber seasons, and a five-year donut hole in the middle in which he did nothing, in essence, to merit consideration. He's played a full season three times. I'll say two things: I have been tremendously swayed by what he's done in this postseason (and the fact that in three Super Bowls, he's thrown for more yards than any player ever, including Joe Montana in four of them and John Elway in five), and his play in three Super Bowls is awfully persuasive.

Call me crazy, but I don't think Kurt Warner should be in the Hall of Fame. His career is not over yet so I could change my mind, but I tell you what will not change my mind, and that is the fact he has thrown for more yards in the Super Bowl than anyone ever. Just because his team did not have a running game this year and his previous teams had little interest in running the ball in the Super Bowl does not, in my opinion, warrant more HoF consideration.

I prefer to look at regular season statistics more intently than postseason.

3. Everyone has heard about Michael Phelps being a "temporary" pothead by now. The big question everyone has, is what Jay Mariotti thinks about all of this.

"I wonder how he's going to handle all of this,'' I said then and there to a writer pal, recalling how a few nights earlier, with the temperature a steamy 81 outside the arena, Phelps had arrived at intermission of a U.S. Redeem Team game with a hoodie pulled over his head and a blanket wrapped around his body.

As usual, Jay Mariotti is all over this and predicted that Michael Phelps would become a recreational drug user. Jay just knew...of course he did not write an article during the Olympics because he was working for the big, bad newspaper and they would not let him. At least that is what he would say.

Much as we want to understand why Phelps would act like any young guy smoking marijuana at a party -- Barack Obama has admitted to inhaling, and so will I -- there is no defense here. The reason: Phelps has openly and eagerly embraced being a reliable role model (his words) for America's youth, and once you accept that monumental responsibility on a high-profile level, you simply cannot be doing the dumb things that other 23-year-olds do.

So Phelps' act would have been defensible if he had not held himself out as a role model for kids, but because he did that, there is no defense for his smoking pot and everything he has done should be wiped away. Jay thinks if Phelps held himself out as a loser and someone who did not want to be accountable for his actions, then no harm no foul.

Once he was committed to that path, Phelps had no recourse but to stay on the straight and narrow. Obviously, he hasn't, with his Gamecock Country slip-up following numerous reports of hard partying. So what does he say now to the nine-year-old who fell in love with him in August and was told to dream, plan, reach?

I think Michael Phelps looks like a douchebag and from seeing him partying around the United States, I get the feeling he may be one as well. I don't get why Mariotti is being harder on him because he said he wants to be an example to kids, then makes a mistake like this. Anyone that thought he was not human was really fooling themselves.

Phelps already had a DUI and I believe he was not even old enough to drink at that time. So that is really two mistakes he made...theoretically.

To be fair, a bong photograph is tame compared to the criminal problems of other athletes. But Phelps isn't just any athlete. He was supposed to be the biggest on the planet, Sportsman of the Year, a shining hope for an ailing country, a savior to flush away steroids and sports' various scandals of recent years.

Here is what really is happening. The mainstream media portrayed Michael Phelps as a real American hero and someone who was a role model everyone could look up to, they put him on the cover of magazines, told stories about how dedicated he was to his craft of swimming and tended to leave out the fact he had a previous DUI and have never written about the various exploits those who follow TMZ have seen, because that has never fit the story they wanted to write. Now he has made them look stupid for holding him up to a high standard and they are going to try and crucify him.

But nothing is real funny about this, not as a wobbly America launches a new presidency with Phelps as our reigning symbol of sports greatness.

The only reason he is the reigning symbol of greatness is because he was an exceptional athlete, so they wanted him to be an exceptional person and tried to portray him in that fashion.

4. As part of this week's Rick Reilly gets paid millions of dollars to write stories like this, here is the new entry.

I used to think the worst jobs in sports were: (1) Thong wrangler for John Daly. (2) Mark McGwire's injector. (3) Detroit Lion.

(4) Rick Reilly's editor. You can't edit anything or there would only be 12 sentences per column.

Here is how a typical conversation probably goes:

(Reilly) "Here you go, my report on playing basketball with nuns."

(Editor) "Rick, this is a paragraph and contains 3 quotes. You only have two original sentences in this."

(Reilly) "Listen, my BMW is acting funny, where do I pick up my paycheck again?"

(Editor) "I am going to need a few more sent...(sound of Reilly walking out of the room whistling showtunes and the door slams shut)...just a couple more sentences is what I needed, I guess I have to do it the hard way. (Googles Rick Reilly's name and spends 15 minutes combing through Reilly's 24 other columns, reading each of them thoroughly, then cuts and pastes the same jokes he used in the Charles Barkley interview, sends it off to be published and hangs himself by his tie).

What the 2,000 found out is: The "on-field audience" doesn't get "paid." They don't get a ticket to watch the game. They don't even get a T-shirt. They can't bring cameras or cell phones—unless they're a group leader. They'll be bussed in and bussed out. They will be on the field for 12 minutes and have to sign a release that they won't sue in case they're flattened by a forklift.

Rick must have been very disappointed they did not get paid. He figures at his current rate ESPN pays him, if he spent 15 minutes on the field, they would owe him at least $95,000.

I didn't even think of the idea until after the two rehearsals had happened. Thank God. "On Thursday, we stood in the rain for eight straight hours," one woman complained.

There were two rehearsals, both of which Reilly missed. At this point, his only responsibility is to run on the field when Springsteen started performing, listen to the music for 12 minutes and then run off the field. That's it. He wrote a column about this but "missed" the two day 10 hour each rehearsals. He gets easy assignments and then is too lazy to even carry out the entire assignment.

Turns out the field for a Super Bowl halftime is Audio Nowhere, Springsteen Unplugged. All the speakers are set in front of the paying customers in the seats, leaving you at a Marcel Marceau concert.

What? After all that work running and that is it...you can't even hear the performance?

Telling you: Don't. Be. One.

It. Involves. Work. But. Not. Really.

Afterward, I was sullenly ignoring Cynthia's exhortation to "Run! Run people!" when I saw my favorite all-time guitarist, Nils Lofgren, Springsteen's lead, walking off the field, one arm around his mystical guitar and the other around an hourglass blonde.

So to be one of the people on the field, you had to attend a two day, 10 hour each rehearsal, run on the field, stay there for 12 minutes, then run off the field.

Rick Reilly only ran on the field and then listened to the performance. That's it...and he bitched about it.

That sound you just heard was 65,000 people losing their job while Rick Reilly gets a new car for what amounts to 15 minutes of work.

5. Jason Whitlock thinks the referees are the MVP of the Super Bowl.

But on a play-to-play, quarter-to-quarter basis, no one influenced the greatest Super Bowl in history more than McAulay and his crew of black-and-gold-wearing, I mean, black-and-white-wearing officials.

That may not be true because the 2006 Super Bowl between Seattle and Pittsburgh was pretty bad as well.

But the 11-7 penalty disparity was actually much worse when you consider McAulay and Co. turned flag-happy in the fourth quarter, dropping six yellow ones on the Steelers (Arizona declined one) to close the gap.

I don't think the officials had a plan to screw over the Cardinals and Mike Gandy was holding on almost every play it felt like. I don't like the idea that both teams should have the similar amount of penalty yardage. Some teams commit more penalties than others, just like in basketball some teams commit more fouls than others. I focus more on the flags that were called and whether they were legitimate or not and also on what obvious calls were not made.

The eye in the sky caught McAulay's crew favoring Pittsburgh twice, overturning two bad calls after replay review.

Those calls were both bad calls, I have to admit.

And then there were the things the refs didn't call. Big Ben got away with an obvious intentional grounding. On the series after the refs handed Pittsburgh a 16-play, clock-killing third-quarter drive with a bogus roughing-the-passer call and a should-have-been-ignored roughing-the-holder penalty, McAulay ignored Harrison's brutal (and late) head shot on Kurt Warner. Holmes could've been penalized for his theatrical end-zone celebration. And Warner's fumble should've been thoroughly reviewed.

I can only disagree with one of these statements and that is that I believe the roughing the holder penalty should have been called. Otherwise, I do agree.

Pittsburgh's last two championships have been hand-delivered by overzealous officiating crews.

Apparently Jason Whitlock is not a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. This is strong language even for him.

6. Gregg Doyel publicly calls out a Woody Paige column.

Freeman and I are giggling over the worst, the absolute worst, lede to a column of the week. Think about that. Think about the number of stories and columns that have been written from Super Bowl week. I just found the worst.

I won't name names, but it ran in Denver. OK, in the Post. OK, it was Woody Paige.

Though I am not a huge Gregg Doyel fan, it is funny to see one MSM columnist outright laugh at another's column heading.

Here is the link to the article.

Steel is blast-furnace tough. Steel is durable. Steel is heavy-duty. Steel is strong. Steel is iron.

Steel is the Pittsburgh football team.

That is pretty bad, but really no worse than anything else Woody Paige has ever done, including quoting Dr. Suess and all the other drivel he pours out.

And as for you, Woody, sorry -- but if you're going to be a big-time media star, deal with the criticism. Plus your fake tan gives me the willies. And this lede flat out sucked.

I wish more public figures, not including Bill Simmons and Dane Cook, would take shots at each other in print. It makes it so much more fun to read the articles.

7. Barack Obama (has anyone ever heard of this guy before?) has made Gregg Doyel said because he is a bandwagon fan.

Turns out, President Obama is as full of crap as the next guy.

This clearly concerns the fact Obama has attempted to appoint several of his potential Cabinet members to posts when they have had legal/IRS troubles that could conflict with their jobs.

Why? He was rooting for the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Or maybe not.

"Other than the Chicago Bears," Obama said days before the game, "the Steelers are probably the team that's closest to my heart."

I hate to agree with Gregg Doyel, but I agree with Gregg Doyel. It drives me crazy when I see Snoop Dogg on television in a Steelers uniform when just a few years ago he had a Raiders uniform on. Pick a team and go with it.

Obama mimicked the infamous intro to Monday Night Football, and I was in love. How could I not be? Here's a guy who gets it. Not a political animal or an intellectual egghead, but a real guy. Running for president. And rooting for his favorite team. Loved it.

I do like the fact Obama is a Chicago sports fan and makes it known. I like that and I don't like how he used the Super Bowl as a way to appeal to Pittsburgh/Pa. voters...which is really what he was doing.

Either that or he really hates Arizona because of John McCain.

This is you-scratch-my back at its finest. To win the presidency, Obama needed to win Pennsylvania. He needed those electoral votes and the momentum they represented, and guess who helped deliver that state? The popular owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney.

I don't know if Dan Rooney was the sole reason Obama won Pennsylvania, but everyone knows (partially because Peter King has brought it up 900 times) Dan Rooney stumped for Obama in the last election. I don't know if we need to take this too seriously because it is just sports after all and Obama is clearly just cheering for Dan Rooney's team. The sports fan in me doesn't like this though.

Either you follow your heart, or you don't. Obama's heart is with the Bears. So what was he following to Pittsburgh? He wasn't following his heart. He was following electoral votes.

The jaded part of me agrees with this. The logical part of me has quit reading by now.

You're reading about the sports fan, what it means to be a member of this club and the requirements of membership. And one of the requirements is this: Other than your favorite team, thou shalt have no other teams "close to your heart."

I agree 100% with this but I hope Gregg Doyel was being overdramatic and doesn't really think Obama is a bad person for this. It just means he wants to be popular and most Presidents tend to enjoy being popular.

8. Bill Plaschke worries the Lakers won't make the NBA Finals without Andrew Bynum, even though they made the NBA Finals last year, without Andrew Bynum.

Andrew Bynum's right knee may have just cost the Lakers a championship.

Yeah maybe, but the Lakers were able to do pretty well last year without Bynum and they could always make a trade.

Last season, he was finally reaching his potential when the injury pulled the chair out from under a Lakers team that, even with the addition of Gasol, was never the same.

They were never the same last year in that they won the Western Conference and only lost the NBA Finals 4-2? Seems like the Lakers almost won the Finals without Bynum, and sure it will hurt to not have him, but everyone is a year older now and a year wiser. Don't crap your pants quite yet.

Lacking either home-court advantage or frontcourt advantage, they then would probably not be able to withstand an improved Cleveland team or a tough Boston team in the Finals.

In Bill Plaschke's worst case scenario, which is if Bynum is out the rest of the season, the Lakers will lose in the NBA Finals. That is his worst case scenario.

Until we know about any of this, Lakers fans can only imitate the injured on-court reaction of the hero whose loss they are now mourning.

You know, scream.

Remind me to never be around Bill Plaschke in an emergency situation. I get the feeling he would freak out.

9. Mike Freeman wonders if the Rooney Rule is necessary.

"I never thought I'd say this in my lifetime," said a black assistant coach, "but the playing field is getting even faster than I thought was possible. We're getting to an equal point very quickly. I didn't think we'd be here for another 20 years."

Teams are smart to hire the best coach for their team and not just hire someone they know really well and has failed a few other times. I think it is good news that coaches like Jim Fassel are not getting second chances but coordinators and other coaches are getting the interviews for head coaching jobs.

Last season there were seven black head coaches while. In 2002, six percent of the head coaches were black. In 1980, according to numbers obtained by CBSSports.com, there were 14 total African-American coaches in all of football. That number was 186 in 2008.

The only problem that still lies around is the fact some teams are only giving interviews to minority candidates to comply with the rule, which makes the rule a joke in some cases. I was never against the Rooney Rule but I also think that a team should look out for its own continued success and the only way to do that is to look at every candidate. It would be stupid to hire a guy less qualifed than another candidate just because he is white.

The question is how much of the progress is simple coincidence, how much is societal progress in general and how much is it the teeth of the Rooney Rule having an impact. Some black coaches seem to think it's a combination of everything.

What the rule did was make the Good Ol' Boy Network more inclusive so now minority coaches are able to get opportunities for head coaching jobs because someone knows someone who thinks that person would be a great coach or that person has worked under a great minority coach. I say give the rule five more years.

10. Pat Forde has a recommendation at the end of his column.

When hungry and thirsty in the oddly interesting town of Winston-Salem, N.C.,

That town is where Wake Forest University is located and is 30 minutes from where I live. It is oddly interesting because I think it has no nightlife, while others think it is great. That is about all that is interesting to me.

The Minutes recommends a visit to the excellent Village Tavern (39). The New York strip and hot crab dip are tremendous, and the locals swear by the meat loaf.

Actually, we call it "VT" for short, but regardless I would stop by between 4-6pm when they have half priced wine and appetizers...and they have good appetizers. I just turned into Peter King.

Pair your meal with a locally brewed Red Oak (40) lager and thank The Minutes later.

I know this has nothing to do with sports but Red Oak is a pretty badass beer. The only depressing part is that it is not served in bottles and you can't buy it in a store, it is only on tap. That depresses me.

I can't wait to see Bill Simmons column for tomorrow. I hope it is full of juicy, incredibly incorrect tidbits.