#YeahJeets! (Jeter Haters piss me off)

He's a sell out. This is a joke. This isn't tradition. He's just trying to make money. He should be ashamed of himself. And of course the ever popular, he's isn't worth all this fuss. To all of you Yankee haters and some Yankee fans out there that are saying this about Derek Jeter, all I have to say to you is, go F yourself ya rat bastards. 

Derek Jeter is only the 13th player ever to be named a captain in one of the oldest and most successful sports organizations ever to exist. With all of the great players to ever put on Yankee Pinstripes, none have gotten more hits in their career than he has. He has 5 world championships. Others have had more (yogi and his 10 come to mind) but none have more in the free agent era. It's a different time now. In a time where it is almost impossible to build a dynasty,  Jeter was the corner stone of one. When the game was on the line, the one person everyone wanted up was Derek Jeter. 

And more importantly, when it seems like everytime we turn someones taking drugs, performance enhancers, accused of domestic violence, beating children, and even killing people in sports today, Jeter did it right. Never accused of taking drugs. Never let his personal life get in the way. Always seemed to have the right answer and always seemed to do the "right" thing.  

For everyone that is hating this send off because "they are just doing this for the money, sell outs, hypocrites" let me ask you this. After seeing Jeter play this year did you not figure it was his last year even if he didn't announce it?  Did you want the last impression of him to be him

breaking his ankle in the playoffs verse the Tigers? Or when he couldn't stay on the field last year?  

Jeter was due 7 million this year to play and the Yankees gave him a 5 million dollar raise for no reason to 12 mil and everyone was like WTF. 2 months later he announces this is his last year. No one but Jeter and the people involved know what was said or happened but could it have gone like this? Jeter tells te yanks he's done. They tell him to give the fans a better send off then the injury season he had the year before. They will be able to make some money on ticket sales,  so his "gold watch" was 5 million more he wasn't worth and memorabilia sales. 12 mil and memorabilia sales probably total this year to about 20 million combined. Let me ask you this, who would turn down 20 million. If you said yeah, your a dirty lier. Even for a rich man, 20 million is 20 million. So the fans in every city get to show their respect, Jeter gets to say goodbye the right way (not injured) and everyone makes money. And if you don't like it then don't go to the games or buy the memorabilia. It's that simple. But don't attack the man as a player. His "numbers" may not put him as one of the top Yankees of all time but anyone that watched how he played and carried himself throughout this career knows Jeter was a class act and one of the greats. We don't have anyone (as Yankee fans) to look to like this after Jeter.

Final thoughts are this. No one said boo last season when Mo had a patch the entire year, had his tour, and said goodbye crying on the mound.  Maybe people are sick of it 2 years in a row. Who knows but knocking the guy for makin money, people giving him gifts, and where he bats in a batting order he doesn't set is obsured. You don't know what you have right in front of you until it's gone. Who's the leader next year? McCann? Gardner? CC? ARod? Right not lookin so got now is it. Thanks Jeter. Thanks for giving me someone that I can tell My kids about like my grandfather talked about Joe D and Mikey and my Aunts about Thurman. Thanks for being part of the Tradition, Ledgend, and Class that is the New York Yankees 

#YeahJeets

USA USA... Oh wait soccer's over

Let me tell you a story about a 14 year old kid and his dad. You see, this kid loved his dad and looked up to him. Both father and son are big sports fans. The son always talked to his dad about sports and obviously liked the same teams his dad did. Baseball, football, some hockey and a little big of basketball. It was great. There was one thing that the son never understood. How could his father love SOCCER more than any of those sports?!?!  It's slow, it's boring, the rules are a little complicated and I don't understand why the clock never stops?!?  But looking up to his dad, the son wanted to learn why he loved it so much. So when his dad asked him to go to a World Cup game at Giants stadium that year, he was happy to go. Upon entering Giant stadium that day he saw 2 groups of fans that loved their countries and teams, he saw passion that was unmatched from any sporting event he had ever been too, he saw competitiveness but comratery. But what he saw that touched him most of all was has Dad, a person he looked up too for his entire life, watching a sport he loved so much with a look in his eye like a little kid. At that moment, that 14 year old boy was hooked on soccer, and especially the World Cup. 

That 14 year old boy was me many moons ago. Even though I may never have the love for soccer my dad did (mine will always be baseball), I went on to learn, love and play soccer. Learning this wonderful game is not easy but in doing so I have some insite on why Americans can not embrace this wonderful game because I needed to come to grips with a few things to do so. Below you will find the list  

1. There is no clock:  Americans are so used to structure, clocks stopping, out of bounds, time outs incomplete passes and whatever else that will stop a game clock. It's something we can control, use and even minipulate if we want to (kneeling down at te end of a game). With soccer you don't have that. A clock runs but it's not official. There is only one person that has the official clock and that's the ref on the field. Everything else is an estimation and a guess. You can't stop the clock when it goes out of bounds,  when a goal scores, to call a time out, at a 2 minute warning, or when someone "injures" themselves. You need to except that not only is the clock not your friend, it's your enemy and there is no way you can stop it, speed it up or minipulate it. Except the ref will stop play when the time is up in his watch and that he will not call a "play dead" and end a game in the middle of a chance to score if his time runs out. Play will only ever stop at a neutral point not in the middle of someone trying to score.  

2. 1-0 games and 0-0 games are the norm:  Soccer is not built to be a high flying lots of scoring type of game. It's a game a skill and finesse that needs to have a perfect situation for a scoring play. As Americans, we hate this. 90% of people hate pitchers dules, don't like the defensive football games with low scoring, if a basketball team plays good defense first before scoring it's not an enjoyable game and low scoring is the reason no one really likes hockey. Unfortanetlaly we are trained to expect action to be entertained. We need to except/appreciate the skill over the action

3. MOST IMPORTANT... We are not the best in the world:  Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, even Tennis, Golf and the Olympics. We expect excellence out of all of these sports. The top leagues play here (for the most part), more importantly, even if the best players aren't American, the goal is to get to America to play here, make the most money, and showcase your ability. With soccer, this will never happen. The best players/league is set up in Europe. This game is older than us.  We can play it here but we will not get the top players until they are done with the leagues over in Europe. MLS is like the retirement league that helps older players extend their playing carrer. We need to except this and not be upset with players from

America that go to these European teams to play. They are just doing what foreign players have done for so many years by coming here to play in the NBA, NHL, MLB, and NFL. 

4. Soccer Players are sissys:  Listen, just because players are diving like they just got shot in the leg ever time someone touches them doesn't make them a sissy. It makes them an actor. They are trying to draw a penalty (falsely) to get a free kick in order to put their team in a better position to score and win a game. Anyone that basically is running for 90 minutes strait is not a sissy. Get that sissy thing out of your head. 

Once you understand all of this and except this as fact, you can start appreciating this game that has been played before our time and that the entire world embraces. Alas I know the answer to this. 90% of America can't get past the fact we are not the best at something, the rules are not what we are used to, and no one is willing to "change things" to appease us.  Watching my dad's passion for a sport, since he is from Italy and has played soccer there as well as here in the US, was one of the greatest things I remember as a young teenager. I learned and played, wanting to make him proud. Hope I did. I leave you with this. Give soccer a chance. Open up your mind and except it's rules, with and without its flaws and you will see an amazing sport, with amazing passion. #JustSayin