Why so angry? Derek Jeter's real personality comes out in press conference

I’m still wondering what Derek Jeter thought he was accomplishing with yesterday’s angry, bitter, score-settling press conference. Geez, I haven’t seen the captain as ticked off at a presser since he mumbled and frowned during Alex Rodriguez’s 2004 introduction as a Yankee.

Yesterday, the New York press corps had to travel 85 miles from the Orlando Winter Meetings to Tampa, because Derek Diva refused to leave his winter hometown to meet the media. Of course, you won’t see anybody in the press complain about this. They don’t want to be frozen out by the King of All Grudges.

It astonishes me how some fans still say how classy Jeter is. Unless you take off the first two letters of the word, “class” is not the word that comes to mind with the way he’s acted this year. And all the anger and bile he showed to the media yesterday wasn’t classy, either. If it’s now all really “one big happy family,” Derek, then why couldn’t you say that phrase without a sarcastic tone and a smirk on your face?

Let’s review what the captain said at the presser:

“It all started with my (reported) salary demands, which still cracks me up,” he said. “What position am I in to demand a salary? Give me this, or what? Where am I going?”

How perfectly disingenuous. Does he really expect us to believe that he and his agent never said what they wanted? Puh-lease. And who was it who leaked that salary information to the press? Bill Madden said it came from the Jeter/Close camp.

Besides, if he’s in no position to demand a salary, then why didn’t he just sign the Yankees’ initial offer and be done with it?

“The thing that probably bothered me the most was how public this became,” he said. “The negotiations were suppose to be private. It was an uncomfortable position I felt that I was in….That was something I was not happy about and let my feelings be known. I never wanted to be a free agent. It was the situation I was in. I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t angry.”

Boo bleeding hoo. How was it that Mariano Rivera was able to handle his negotiations privately, and Jeter couldn’t? Maybe it’s because Mo was reasonable, and Jeter wanted to be paid A-Rod money for Marco Scutaro stats, while his agent compared him to Babe Ruth? Just a guess.

“I was more angry at the process and how I was being portrayed,” Jeter said of the talks. “I heard greed, I heard all of the sudden I have an ego, arrogance and I don’t think I was portrayed correctly. From my understanding of a negotiation, one side makes an offer, another side makes an offer and you try to come to an agreement.”

Well, I don’t think Jeter “all of a sudden” got an ego — he’s had one all along; he’s just been very good at hiding it.

Besides, does he not get that when you ask for between $25 million a year for six years, after you’ve had the worst year of your career, during the most horrible economic times since the Great Depression, that this might not come off as the best idea, no matter how many intangibles you have?

“Yeah, I’m getting older, but so is everyone else in this room,” Jeter said.

That’s a silly argument. It doesn’t matter if Brian Cashman or Dr. Charles Jeter is getting older. What matters is that the 36-year-old shortstop is getting older.

“For me (the negotiation) wasn’t a good experience. How this became so public. … was uncomfortable and I got angry at times,” Jeter said. “When the organization says, ’go shop’ when I said I wasn’t going to, yeah, I wasn’t happy about it.”

Love the complete lack of responsibility here. Cashman only said what he did about testing the free agent market after Casey Close whined to Mike Lupica about how mean the Yankees were being to his client. When Newsday’s Ken Davidoff pointed out to Jeter that his agent participated in making this public, here was Jeter’s response:

“That’s Casey, that’s Casey,” Jeter said. “You guys assume that I control everything that Casey does, so you’d have to ask him. I don’t know if he’s talking today, but you’d have to ask him certain things.

“Just because Casey, from my understanding, mentioned how the process was going to be a certain way, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s my feelings.”

What nonsense. Close works for Jeter. The idea that Close went rogue in speaking his own opinion, and that Jeter had nothing to do with it, is flat-out crazy. If Close did something Jeter didn’t like, the way Scott Boras did with A-Rod, he could have fired him. But the captain wants to have it both ways — take the moral high ground because he himself never spoke in public, and act as if his agent wasn’t really speaking for him. Is anybody really buying this?

“I want to play as long as I’m having fun, and I’m having fun now,” Jeter said. “If I’m not enjoying myself, then I won’t be playing.”

Gee, that’s nice. How about Jeter wanting to play as long as he can help the Yankees win? Remember that whole team-first thing he was supposed to be all about?

You know who this reminds me of? It’s a name on the tip of my tongue….

“I feel as though I’m in the middle of [my career],” Jeter said.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Brett Favre the Second! Good grief.

* * *

One other note: three years ago, when A-Rod re-signed with the Yankees, the press conference was done very low-key, via a conference call. Nobody remembers what was said, as the presser had the unfortunate timing of taking place the day the Mitchell Report was released.

This time around, Jeter made sure he was the star, with the Yankee front office and the media traveling across Florida to pay their respects. My only surprise about this Derek Diva act that he didn’t demand signing bonus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh!

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Why so angry? Derek Jeter’s real personality comes out in press conference

Alan Draper

Alan Draper

Alan Draper