What's The Difference?

I have a question.

What's the difference between A-Rod's comments regarding Jose Reyes and Derek Jeter's in reference to David Wright?

A-Rod:

I wish (Reyes) was leading off on our team or playing on our team. That’s fun to watch.

Yes, he said he wished Reyes was playing for the Yankees, but listen to Jeter talk about Wright (emphasis mine):

The thing with him, I respect the way he handles himself in New York. I think he shows all the right leadership skills - he leads by example and he's not phony. What you see is what you get from him. It's not an image he's trying to portray; I think that's how he is as a person.

If that isn't a blatant shot aimed squarely at A-Fraud, I don't know what is. (Well, maybe this.)

Had you read the Jeter quote before right then? I hadn't before I dug them up in the Daily News today. Why wasn't there a massive public outcry? Which of those quotes would you rather have aimed at you? This is just personal preference, but last thing in the world I want to be called is phony.

PeteAbe, where were you on that one? When A-Rod made his Reyes comments this is what you said, "It’s truly amazing the fixes this guys gets himself into. It really is."

And here is what you said about Jeter's comments on Wright, "__________". (It didn't even make the blog.)

Listen, I've had as much fun as A-Rod's expense as anyone. This post was responsible for the biggest day in the history of our site (thanks in part to PeteAbe). But let's not kid ourselves into thinking that Derek Jeter has some bulletproof persona and incredible media savvy and A-Rod is just some bumbling buffoon who fucks up pretty much every time he opens his mouth. Actually, I'm okay with the second part of that.

But the self-fulfilling prophecy of Jeter's "public genius" is amazing. Beat writers and media types love Jeter because he's charming and straightforward and therefore they automatically give him credibility. He can get away with saying something almost exactly in line with what A-Rod says, and it gets buried at the end of a Daily News article, while everyone flogs A-Rod for taking shots at the Teflon SS. The funny thing is A-Rod probably just didn't chose his words well, but you can tell there was some angst and frustration behind what Jeter said.

The short answer to the question I posed at the top: The person who said it.

Until I started writing for this blog, I didn't realize the importance of who is actually saying something. We probably all have blog feeds with multiple authors and prefer one to another. If for some reason they posted a Christmas Ape post at KSK under Big Daddy Drew's name, I would probably think it was funnier, given my appreciation for Drew's past work.

Similarly, when Jeter opens his mouth, people expect him to say something uncontroversial and because of that, his quotes are presented as carefully calculated insights. A-Rod is no stranger to saying and doing inexplicable things, so when he says something asinine, everyone thinks to themselves, "I fucking knew it", right before they clobber him for it.

It's human nature. I don't mean to call out PeteAbe for not liking A-Rod because he's the best Yankee blogger we've got, and if any of us were in his position, we'd probably hate A-Rod's guts just as much or more.

Case in point:

Jeter says he admires the way both Pedroia and Youkilis play "every game like it's the last game they're going to play. You appreciate that."

I didn't hear anyone say: "ZOMG, did he just take a shot at the sometimes lackadaisical-looking Robinson Cano?!/?1!?/11!?1 He's no Captain."

Dr. Dre, would you please tell these mahfackers: