Okay, so Jeter went 5 for 5 and got his 3,000th hit just after I said that he should start thinking about stepping down. I will gladly eat that crow. However, he is still not at the form he once was or at the form other shortstops on the Yankees are. He went 5 for 5 that game, but has only 5 hits since that game, too.
I mentioned in an earlier post that Ken Griffey, Jr. was the best pure home run hitter and was screwed by the 94-95 baseball strike. Griffey was a class act. He was never linked to steroids, unlike everyone else who outpaced him in homers during the 90s. Griffey was on pace to break Maris' record in the before the strike. If he had been given the chance, I think he would have broken the record. Maybe not to the extent that McGwire and later Bonds did, but he would have broken it. Griffey was screwed. He left the Mariners for positive reasons. He had seen the death of a friend in a plane crash and realized he wanted to play closer to home. His father had played in Cincinnati, was the Reds' bench coach at the time, and the family was from the area. Signing with the Reds was a no-brainer. At least the Mariners were able to trade him for two players and two minor-leaguers. Really, The Kid, was going home. He was the highest payed player in baseball until Alex Rodriguez signed his ridiculous deal with Texas. What we didn't know was after 2000, he would never again win a Gold Glove or a Silver Slugger award. He would be plagued by injuries, only make the All Star Game 3 more times and never make the post season as a Red (and only in 2008 with the White Sox).
How is this good karma? How are his late career woes an example of karma for a squeaky clean image, nice guy attitude, and successes of his early career? It is because none of that has diminished what we think of The Kid. He was still welcomed back to Seattle with open arms and celebration. We still remember his sweet swing. We still ask ourselves "what if?" What if he hadn't been injured so many times after leaving Seattle? We wouldn't have to worry about a big-headed antagonistic jerk having an asterisk by the all time home run record. If the 94 and 95 seasons had been played in their entirety, the single season and the all-time home runs records would belong to a legitimate heir. That is the karma. It isn't Griffey who is being punished. It is the bad karma of the strike and steroids era baseball that is punished. Griffey will still go to Canton. I hope he goes wearing the S on his hat instead of the C. His Hall of Fame career was in Seattle, not Cincinnati.
More karma and Barry Bonds. His record breaking 72nd home run ball from 2001 had to go to court to determine to whom it belonged. His celebrated 71st and 72nd shots came on the night that the Giants were eliminated from the playoffs. Controversy followed his final home run ball not being authenticated and initially disappearing, as well. Bonds cheated, was widely disliked by media, fans, opposing players, and even some of his own teammates. Who would have thought a player who hit 28 home runs and still carried a .276 batting average would be a free agent the next season and find no takers?
Mark McGwire's record home run ball was recovered by a Busch Stadium employee and returned to the slugger. This is the middle of the road for karma. The stadium worker did what was pretty much required of him. He gave the ball back to the team's slugger.
The tussles over Bonds home run balls are the low points of karma.
The young man who caught Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit, a home run, returned the ball to the Yankee captain without asking for anything. What he got for his action was $25,000 toward his student loan repayment (with the taxes being covered by the two companies giving him the money). He also received a World Series Champs ring from a donor and season tickets to Yankees home games including playoffs. Being given playoff tickets at Yankee Stadium?? That's about as much as the $25,000 cash!
Bonds carried the bad karma with him and transferred it in the collectibles. McGwire came clean about steroid use and has neutral karma. His reputation and records were smudged, but they were smudged by him. Bonds still maintains silence on his steroid use. Jeter, like the previously mentioned Griffey, has kept a squeaky clean image in the hardest market imaginable. Yes, I was disappointed at his theatrics last year when he was beaned but not beaned. I turned on the NBA playoffs and watched LeBron James go flying off the ball to draw a foul when everyone including the announcers spotted that no one had touched him. Watching mad flailing at nothing is a soccer match past time as well, so Jeter adding a little drama to a ball off the base of the bat doesn't appear so bad. Plus, in the world of sports, if that is the worst thing you can find with a guy who's had a sixteen year career, then kudos to him.
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