“According to a lawyer in baseball briefed on the negotiations, the Yankees have made Jeter a three-year, $45 million offer… The lawyer spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his access to sensitive information.”– New York Times
NEW YORK – As the discussions between New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter and the team grow increasingly contentious, several sources close to the situation are maintaining that, despite a recent fall-off in productivity, Jeter should be paid everything he is asking for.
“I just can’t picture him in another uniform.” said a String Theory physicist from the University of Chicago, who requested anonymity because he was speaking from a parallel universe in which neither time nor space are prequisites for existence. “Then, given these 11 dimensions, I can’t really picture anything.”
“He would certainly have been an all-star in any of our own sports, if we’d had any,” said a former priest from his ziggurat in the Sumerian city-state of Uruk by means of cuneiform, 5,000 years ago, who stamped his words in reeds from the banks of the Tigris river on condition of anonymity because his king, Gilgamesh, might exile him to the kingdom of Sargon of Akkad. “He certainly has god-like qualities.”
“I saw him in a diner last season, and he tipped generously,” said a Yankee fan friend of mine in Montclair, N.J, on the condition of anonymity because he doesn’t really know anything about anything, and doesn’t want this known. “He was eating an egg-white omelet with spinach, and when I asked him to sign my napkin, he was quick to oblige, I offered to send him a signed copy of my biography of Moose Skowron, but he politely declined.”
“Dude’s worth every penny,” said a clerk at the Duane Reade drugstore on East 13th Street, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was under the influence of methamphetamines he’d manufactured using over-the-counter ingredients in the store, and couldn’t remember his own name, and, thought that Jeter was a rhythm guitarist for the current incarnation of the Steve Miller Band. “The man can still play a wicked slide.”
“I’d pay him everything he’s asking for, and then some,” said a general manager of a team in the Japanese Professional League, who texted on the condition of anonymity because he was in the bathtub at the Swissotel Nankai Osaka, and was afraid that his mistress would come in and see that he was texting on the IPad she’d just given him, because if it fell into the bathtub, it would short out.
“I’ve always admired how he stayed out of trouble, and was always ready to play, even in the increasingly unpredictable Northeast weather conditions,” said a meteorologist at a midwestern NBC affiliate who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his superiors had forbidden him to speak about the effects of global warming.
“Would they have given FDR what he was asking for, even if, entering his fourth term, his performance had fallen off?” said a Yankee shortstop and captain, who spoke on conditions of anonymity because he was integrally involved in the negotiations, and unauthorized to speak, lest it compromise his negotiating position. “I think so.”
“I have no comment at this point,” said Yankee general manager Brian Cashman, on the condition of anonymity because the conversation was supposed to be off the record, but I decided it wasn’t.