Good Acting or Cheating the Game?

I'm sure by now every has saw or heard about Derek Jeter getting "hit by a pitch" last night. This happened in the top of the seventh inning against the Tampa Bay Rays, a team in which the Yankees are in a race with for the division. I am not going to get into that fact, or how this gave the Yankees a base runner that would, inevitably, be the tying run, for the time being. That's not what I'm here to talk about, I'll leave that for the people that actually care about baseball since football season is here (you can call me a bitter Orioles fan if you want). I'm here to talk about the incident that happened and everything that has since been discussed or analysed. Here is a clip of what happened before we proceed.



Now don't get me wrong I hate the Yankees as much as the next guy or O's fan however you want to look at it, but what took place really doesn't warrant this much attention. Derek Jeter is one of the classiest Yankee players of all time, and the people looking at this as him cheating and being immoral need to get off their high horse and just suck it up. He was leaning in for a bunt, in which he got a pitch inside, the ball hit the butt of the bat, but he sold it as he got hit. If I'm not mistaken isn't his job to get on base, isn't that what any baseball players objective is?

If this was another player, which did not have the same reputation as Jeter, insert A-Rod, this would just be looked at as a dirty player cheating the system. But because it was Jeter making an intelligent play and selling it as well as he did, it is being view as he was cheating and teaching the youth that cheating it the way to win. This is the wrong manner of thinking, in my opinion. Does a catcher not frame pitches that were right out of the zone, does a receiver stop running if he slightly stepped on the sidelines, no, they do what they have been thought since they started playing the game, keep going till the whistle blows. If anyone is at fault here, the umpire needs to catch some of heat for missing the call, not Jeter.

In my eyes, instead of calling Jeter's morals and status as a "role model" into question, we should be looking at his intellegance and understanding of the game, it was a very smart play that 99% of the league would have not even thought of attempting, but not only did he attempt it, he succeeded. Think the guy got a free trip to first base, he wasn't having an affair with Madonna, taking HGH, or the countless of things that other player on his team have done. Give the man some credit and let's move on.