"Making" Jeter A "Yankee For Life"®!1™!!1!©!

Tired of the talk about Derek Jeter's upcoming contract negotiations? Well, you're in luck! Kevin Kernan has a mind-bendingly redundant and asinine column in this morning's Post that bypasses Jeter's current situation and orders the Yankees to somehow make him part owner of the team after his career is over (but offers no blueprint of how that might be accomplished).

Why? Because, Jeter apparently needs to be a "Yankee for Life" and Kernan purports that making him an owner of the team is the only way to accomplish that.

Allow me to summarize the entirely (and inanity) of Kernan's article with four short, verbatim excepts of it:

• The Yankees need to find a way to make Derek Jeter a Yankee for Life. There's really only one way. At some point the Steinbrenner family would have to take him into the ownership group.
  
  
• The Yankees and Jeter will come together on a new deal at some point, but Jeter needs to be a Yankee for Life and there is a way to make him one. The Yankees need to work out a deal with Jeter where they allow him to become part of Yankees ownership after his playing days are complete.
  
  
• Jeter needs to be a Yankee for Life.
  
  
• Where will that ownership path take him? It should take him through The Bronx. Jeter should be a Yankee for Life.

Pop quiz, Kernan: How much of the team does Yogi Berra own? Yes, he played for and managed other teams, but does that diminish his legacy as a True Yankee 4EVAR®? Larry Bird is the President of Basketball Operations for the Pacers, do you think fans of the Celtics remember him any less fondly?

The Yankees don't need to "find a way to make Jeter a Yankee for life". The fact that Kernan is demanding that Jeter be magically granted an ownership stake in the team is a testament to the status he holds in the franchise regardless of whether they cut him in to it financially or not. Nothing needs to be done to make Jeter a lifelong Yankee except maybe give him another contract and invite him back to Old Timer's Day when it expires.

One thing is certain, Derek Jeter attains his goals. So you can be sure he will be an MLB owner somewhere.

Another thing that is certain? That is fucking ridiculous.

What if Derek Jeter's goal is to build a baseball stadium on the Moon and play his team's games there? Well, the rest is just a formality, right Kevin? THE WILL OF DEREK JETER CAN NEVER BE DENIED!

Jeter will be a championship owner just as he is a championship player.

The formula worked perfectly for Michael Jordan.

Craig walked through the logistics of making Jeter a part owner earlier this morning and there might be some potential for that. But Jeter has expressed interest in "calling the shots" and pooling together every dime he has made and then some isn't going to buy him any real authority in the Yanks organization. Making him a token, honorary sort of owner of the team is a fine idea, but the notion that any stake he is given will make him "Boss II" as Kernan says is patently ridiculous.

If Jeter wants to have actual control over a team (and doesn't want to be a GM), he's going to have to find a bunch of extremely wealthy investors who will hand him tons of money without asking for a say in how the team is run, target another franchise besides the Yanks or both.