The hottest of hot takes from Chris Carlin on SNY about the Jeter farewell business, in which he says about Jeter: “This guy’s a fraud, and you are all suckers.”
Obviously we’re not all Jeter fans, and there is certainly an element of fatigue to all of the Jeter stuff for those of us who are not. But you have to be one particularly sour jackwagon to have opinions about all of this that are this strong. He’s a “fraud?” If anything Jeter and other athletes have given this guy and guys like him more reason and basis to make money and otherwise benefit in their pathetic lives than anything else. They don’t owe you crap, and to suggest they’ve somehow fooled anyone into anything is the height of ridiculousness
But what would be worse is if this guy actually doesn’t feel hurt or defrauded by Derek Jeter. If he’s voicing opinions this strong that he doesn’t, in reality, hold, because he feels like he needs to yell louder and be more provocative than the next talking head.
And I know what many of you will say: then why give him any ink here? That’s exactly what he wants! We’ve been over this stuff in the past, but the short version is that I still maintain some shred of hope and optimism for humanity and I continue to believe, however naively it may be, that exposing awful people and awful opinions will, in the aggregate, make things better. That while there will always be some who eat this kind of crap up, there is at least 50% + 1 of humanity that agrees this is crap and will consider it so. And that, over time, as this sort of crap is met with scorn, it will seem less and less appealing, thus elevating the discourse.
Maybe I’m nuts. But I’d rather be hopelessly nuts like that than to live in a world where sour-ass idiocy like this simply happens without anyone caring.
