Jeter Eager to Turn 'Page' on Posada Flap

Derek Jeter has long proven himself to be a master at a number of things: Stroking that line drive to right center with the game on the line, going deep in the hole toward third to make that jump-throw and get the guy at first by thismuch, and offering banal cliches in lieu of true insight and perspective in interviews.

Jeter has drawn the ire of Yankee brass for defending Jorge Posada's snit over the weekend, and there's ample evidence that the face of the Yankees and its front office are growing a bit tired of each other.

Jeter was happy to put the incident behind him yesterday, and tapped one of his favorite cliches--nine times, in fact--to help him close the book on it.

Writes the NY Times:
“It’s all good,” said Jeter, who in less than four minutes used a variation of the phrase “we’re on the same page” nine times. 

It's funny to picture the beat reporter, Ben "Buy a Vowel" Shpigel," putting down check marks in his notebook next to "We're on the same page" with his timer, er, his Jeter-Meter, counting off the minutes.

The Yankees have lost six straight and don't seem to be doing anything right, on and off the field. And one is starting to wonder if mega-signing Rafael Soriano has played his last Yankee game, due to troubles with his elbow and his mouth.

Jeter actually did offer a hint of insight into his dealings with the media later in the Times story.

“I learned a long time ago,” Jeter said, “the more you talk about things, the longer they last.”

So if his nine "page" utterings are any indication, this "thing" might stick around for awhile.

Derek Jeter Has Had Enough of His 'Swinging' Singles Days

You have to feel for Derek Jeter.
I mean, not that much--the guy is still the toast of New York, he's engaged to Minka Kelly, and he's got that mega-manse down in St. Jetersburg.
But there he is, a man who values privacy the way Bartolo Colon values cheezeburgers, on the front page of the New York Times, addressing his season long--make that, year-long--slump. Not the front page of the Sports, he's been there before. We're talking page A-1--sharing space with President Obama and Bin Laden and other global luminaries present and past.
Jeter's stats may be down, way down, this season. But the Times suggests he's leading in one crucial category: the swinging bunt.
Writes Ben "Buy a Vowel" Shpigel:
The only offensive category in which he leads the major leagues is infield hits — and, well, it isn’t his speed that accounts for that.

The swinging bunt. The most flaccid of batter outcomes in baseball, perhaps even more ignominious than the strikeout. At least you don't have to sprint to first--running twice as far as your ball did--after a strikeout.
The swinging bunt. When it happened back in childhood sandlot ball, we called "cheap!" and made it a do-over.
Yet Jeter--the Prince of the City, The Captain--is riding those "cheap" balls all the way to first with frightening regularity.
Writes Shpigel:
[Detroit third base coach Gene] Lamont said the Tigers had not been positioning their infielders any differently to guard against what has become Jeter’s perhaps most noticeable offensive trait this year — the swinging bunt, 60-foot dribblers up the third-base line. He had 10 infield singles, and many have been nubbers or bouncers that do not reach the dirt of the basepaths, as opposed to sharply hit balls that ricochet off an infielder or shoot deep in the hole.
Jeter is 48 hits--swinging bunts and searing liners alike--away from 3,000. It's safe to say he won't enjoy the media's buildup to the historic event--especially if he remains homerless dating back to last summer.

Yanks Thrive on 'Core' Values

With the Bombers facing old autumn nemesis the Los Angeles Dodgers out west this past weekend, the Gotham papers focused on the players' reunion with former skipper Joe Torre. Numerous papers invoked the increasingly popular phrase "Core Four" for the Yankee veteran quartet of Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte and Posada.

"Joe Torre knows sentiment will be pushed aside when Core Four Yankees visit Dodgers," read the Daily News headline Friday.

Going back to April, the Daily News reported: "This week's Sports Illustrated features a tremendous cover shot of the Core Four - Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte - having some fun with each other."

Something called All Headline News used the phrase to explain why the Yanks won the World Series last fall: George Steinbrenner, a.k.a. "Boss" and the "Core Four" of Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada are among nine reasons the New York Yankees won their 27th World Series Wednesday night.

The first references to the Yanks' Core Four appears to be around the time of the 2009 World Series.

It appears the Yankees aren't the only team with a Core Four. The Mets have one too, says the NY Post. Quick, can you name the foursome?

The Bombers group of Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada are know for World Series titles, while the Mets bunch of Jose Reyes, David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana are distinguished by collapses and injuries.

NBC Sports even referred to D'Brickashaw Ferguson (D'Brickashaw Ferguson...now that's a name!) as part of the Jets' "Core Four", drawing the ire of one pinstripe-wearing reader.

Wrote WWNYGD:
HOW DARE YOU use a Yankees reference "Core Four" for the Jets.

Get it straight. "most" Yankees fans are Giants Fans. "most" Jets fans are Mets fans.

Oh snap!

No lesser light than Alex Rodriguez--most certainly not part of the Core Four--referred to the foursome, though not by its moniker, when describing his own cool relationship with Torre.

He tells the NY Times:

"I can’t say that I have the same relationship he does with Jorge and Pettitte and Mo and Jeet. I’d be lying to you. Those guys have a 10-, 12-year history. They won a lot of championships together."

Pettitte's three-year stint in Houston notwithstanding, it's more like a 15 year history for the Core Four, and that doesn't include the minors.

After all that time, you'd think Pettitte and Posada would have cool nicknames like the other half of the Core Four.

Handy Andy? Mr. Posada Head?


[image: sasquatchkid.tumblr.com]

'Bloused' Pants Mystery Solved

Last week, we questioned what the heck Derek Jeter was talking about when he mentioned Yankees being made to wear their pants "bloused". Was he referring to his baseball pants, or his post-game, late-dinner at Tao trousers?

I reached out to a fashion expert, who'd never heard of the term.

I then reached out to Paul Lukas, who operates the incomparable Uni Watch website and ESPN.com column, which obsessively studies sports uniforms and is one of the great niche-sports reads around.

Lukas was good enough to hit us back over the long weekend. It was fitting that it was over Memorial Day that Lukas memorializes the concept of bloused baseball pants.

He writes:

Bloused pants refers to the proper method of wearing one's pants high-cuffed. It's not enough to have the pants bunched up at the knee -- the proper method is to have the elastic cuff tucked under and out of sight, which causes a slight bulge at the point where the fabric breaks underneath. This is blousing.

Look here:


See how the pant leg fabric turns under?

See how the cuff point is wider than the stirrup just below it? That's the blousing effect.

Nowadays, of course, the Yankees don't enforce this rule. Neither does anyone else. A pity.

[images: Daily Mail]

Derek Jeter and the Case of the 'Bloused' Trousers

In a NY Times article earlier this week, Harvey Araton attempted to break down exactly what makes the Yankees the Yankees, and what makes the Mets, well, the Mets.

He interviews Derek Jeter, who says Yankees learn the Yankee way from the first moment they step onto the field in rookie ball. "Every level in the minor leagues, we were taught that the team game first," said Jeter. "There were always a lot of rules. No facial hair. We had to have our pants bloused. Rules a lot of teams don't have."

So...Yankees' pants are bloused. What does that mean? I've never heard the term "bloused" before--and certainly not from a ballplayer. Does bloused refer to the uniform pants, as in, they should be loose, like a blouse? (Blouses are loose, aren't they? And isn't blouse a funny word when you say it a few times? Go ahead, try it.)

Or should the off-the-field pants be bloused?

I checked in with an old friend, the New York fashion designer (and my former East Village roomie) John Bakel, who's prevalent enough in the New York fashion scene to actually have his own Wikipedia entry--and a glowing one at that. John says he too has never heard the term bloused--in all of his years in fashion, in fact. (He's heard the term "fabulous" a lot, but not "bloused".)

"I'd imagine it refers to pleated pants, not straight ones," he says.

Not straight indeed. "It's definitely not a menswear term," he adds. "I mean, what guy would want to buy something that's described as 'bloused'?"