Donald Trump perpetuates the A-Rod myth

May 9th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

When you are Alex Rodriguez, people call you out. You are the highest paid baseball player ever, you play in New York City for the Yankees — this is how it goes. But as FJM has talked about who knows how many times and as our pal Matt Watson points out today, it is utterly preposterous to call Derek Jeter Clutchy McClutcheron and A-Rod a choke artist. It is not that black and white. Simple as that.

But leave it to Donald Trump to keep the line moving on that one:

Trump was in Arkansas on Thursday to speak at the Economics Arkansas luncheon. According to arkansasbusiness.com, Trump talked about Rodriguez, a three-time AL MVP who has been criticized for his perceived inability to come through in important situations.

“He always plays bad under pressure,” Trump was quoted as saying. “Derek Jeter, he’s the greatest. People love Derek Jeter. Are those cameras on? This is going to get broadcast back home. Oh, now he’ll leave my building.”

And since I don’t want to look up stats, I’ll refer to Watson for the kicker here:

This seems like a good place to remind everybody that Jeter hit just .176/.176/.176 in the playoffs last year, has a .699 OPS thus far this season and hasn’t hit a home run in nearly eight months. A-Rod, meanwhile, OPS’d .820 in the playoffs last year .913 in close and late situations the last three years.

So yeah, there’s that. But have you seen Jeter’s heart and desire, the way he dives after those balls and is a True Yankee? Bletch.