Derek Jeter, Skip Bayless and the cult of popularity

I don't watch First Take on ESPN much, if only because I work during the day. But I've heard that Skip Bayless caused a bit of a kerfuffle over something he said about Derek Jeter. (The quote is from the linked article.)

Bayless engaged in a heated debate in which he quoted BALCO founder Victor Conte as saying synthetic testosterone use is “rampant” in the majors today. He then asked, “If you are Derek Jeter, would you think about using HGH right now?” Bayless backed off accusing Jeter of any wrongdoing.
“I am not saying he uses a thing,” Bayless said. “I have no idea. But within the confines of his sport, it is fair for all of us, in fact you are remiss, if you don’t at least think about this.”

For this, he has taken a fair amount of criticism.

What was most depressing about Derek Jeter being "accused" by Skip Bayless of using PEDs — and "accused" is a verb that gives Bayless's dipshittery far more credit than it deserves — is not that Bayless did it; this is what Bayless does. It's that someone actually asked Jeter about it. He had to give a legitimate response. And then that response itself becomes news, with the headline "Jeter brushes off PED talk." There is no talk. There is only Bayless.

But let's step back for just a minute and ponder these three sets of numbers, remembering that they came during the time encompassing the subject's 36th through 38th birthdays, and he's a shortstop ... and make the subject not be Derek Jeter, perhaps the most-respected player in baseball:

2010: .270 (batting average)/.340 (on-base percentage)/.370 (slugging percentage)/10 (home runs).
2011: /297/.355/.388/6 (after a first half so bad that there was open speculation about what his future would hold).
2012 (so far):.324/.364/.450/13, plus a league-leading 169 hits.

What would people be saying?

I'm a big Derek Jeter fan. More than anyone else -- and there are certainly other worthy candidates like Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte -- he symbolizes to me the great Yankee era of my adulthood like Ruth, Mantle or DiMaggio did for people before me.

And I don't think he has used performance-enhancing drugs. If we ever find out he did, I'll be disappointed. I'll be unhappy. Maybe I'll even be mad.

But I don't think he has.

But why do I think that way?

For the same reason everyone ripping Bayless does (and also that they don't like Bayless).

Derek Jeter wouldn't do such a thing.

Melky Cabrera? Sure. Bartolo Colon? Ummm...yeah! (Upon learning the news, the great Ken Tremendous, who I believe has thumped on this tub before, wrote on Twitter, "Wait a second...Bartolo Colon was using PEDs?! Who in the world could've possibly imagined such a thing except everyone in the universe?!")

But not Derek Jeter.

Because he's the most-respected player in baseball.

With every fiber of my being, I want Skip Bayless to be wrong, to be proven as the idiot who can do no better than saying stupid things about white Redskins fans supporting a white quarterback over a black one. I think he is.

However, we need to decide ... is everyone who has an unexpectedly good season suspect, or is no one? Because one of these days, someone who "nobody thought" would ever use PEDs is going to get nailed.