INTERVIWING THE MAN ON THE STREET

Why..please tell me why, the news, and I mean print, and television, have this insatiable need to interview the man on the street? I have never gotten any information, learned anything valuable, or made a decision based on what Fred from Yonkers adds to a story. FOX 5 news is the worst, and they even add a part on the news every night where they ask viewers to email their meaningless opinion on the topic of the day (which is usually not even an interesting or relevant topic), and then spend time reading these inane comments.

The Post really stepped it up this week, after a report came out that statistically, Derek Jeter was the worst fielding shortstop in baseball over the last couple of years. From the Post “According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania using a complex statistical method, they concluded that Alex Rodriguez was one of the best shortstops in the game when he played for the Texas Rangers. Researchers looked at every ball put in play from 2002 through 2005 and recorded where the shots went. Penn researcher Shane Jensen said a player's success depended on his range as well as how effectively he made decisions and positioned himself on the field. Players were then ranked in each position from best to worst, with Mr. New York Baseball - Jeter - coming in dead last among major league shortstops during the research period.”

The Post’s headline was YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! So immediately the Post did the best thing they could think about to get to the bottom of this ludicrous story…did they analyze the numbers?….NOOOOO, did they explain and try to see if the numbers were flawed?...NOOOOO…did they do their own report with their own stats?....HELL NOOOOO….they took to the street and asked Yankee fans what they thought.

"I don't know what they're smoking down at Penn," said Yankees fan Mike Birch, 32. "That's preposterous. I completely disagree. Jeter's a clutch player."

Ummmm. Yea Mike his is VERY clutch, but the statistical analysis says he’s not a great fielder…

"It's ridiculous," said fan Jay Ricker, 22. "Jeter is all-around awesome. He's better than A-Rob any day. Character has a lot to do with it. He's out there for his teammates, not just himself. He does it for the good of the team. That's the kind of guy you want on the field."

Again, NY Post, can we try and keep these guys on point, I agree Jeter has great character, but what about his fielding? I mean he won 2 gold gloves and now these people in Penn (Red Sox fans I’m sure) are saying he’s the worst fielder in the league…

Frank Angelo said. "He's a good fielding shortstop." He even said he would keep Jeter at short. "Jeter's the captain, he was there before A-Rod, said Angelo.

Ooooooh…Frank cleared that up for us, Jeter was here first AND he’s the captain, it doesn’t matter who’s the better fielder, it matters who was here first, with that theory, shouldn’t Bobby Meachem still be the Yankee shortstop?

Listen to me…people are generally stupid…people with opinions are even stupider…people who email the news at 10:15 at night when the questions is “Do you think the MTA should raise the Subway Fare” are bordering on insane. Please, lets stop asking people walking around NYC at 2:30 in the afternoon what they think, I mean they should be at work anyway not strolling the streets all free and ready for an interview with Curtis Sliwa’s ex-wife.

This has to stop, but it won’t. And, as for you cynics thinking this entire topic was just a ruse for me to get a mention in about that Jeter awful fielder report without calling it JETER IS LEAGUE’S WORST FIELDING SHORTSTOP, well the best way I can think about getting to the bottom of that is to ask the readers, …please use the comment section below to answer this question:

Was this entire topic just an excuse to point out the report that claimed Jeter is the worst fielding shortstop in Baseball? What do you think?