Jeter should have given fan big check for 3,000th hit

Phil Mushnick

Money-ugly. Everything has turned -- soured, spoiled -- to money-ugly, a relentless aggravated assault on the better senses.

If right is right and wrong is wrong, here's what Derek Jeter and his image-molders should have done -- had to do -- when Christian Lopez returned that baseball, no charge:

Jeter should have said, "Don't be ridiculous. I'm writing you a personal check for $25,000 [or more], and I insist that you accept it and cash it. I will not take no for an answer. Here's why, Christian: Me, the Yankees and our exclusive stuff-pusher, Brandon Steiner, are selling everything attached to this 3,000-hit thing. Everything. From the on-deck circle mat to handfuls of Yankee Stadium dirt.

Reuters

THANKS, SUCKER! Derek Jeter, shaking hands with Christian Lopez who caught his 3,000th hit, should have written a check of at least $25,000 to Lopez.

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"Let's be honest. We're pigging out on this. So how would it look if I jammed all this dough-for-nothing in my pockets -- not that I need the money -- while I accepted the one truly valued item as a gift, accepted it from a ticket-buying fan, no less?

"So take this check, me to you, with my thanks. It's only right."

That's the shame attached to both Jeter's 3,000th hit and his carefully crafted, finely polished and assiduously protected image. He'll sell ya more than he'll tell ya. And Jeter's role in the Christian Lopez story just didn't pass the smell test.

Jeter's a terrific player; being the first to reach 3,000 hits only in a New York uniform is big. Still, while he's extra careful about what he says to guard his image, he'd sell you his pregame-used Q-Tips.

And that just doesn't fit all this Mr. Pinstripe Class propaganda. As reader Peter Pujols put it, why would such an extra image-protective star play the lead in "a memorabilia orgy?"

But in an age of money-ugly -- when probing for the limits of how much money can be sucked from fans' and fools' pockets -- why should Jeter act any differently? These days maybe it's enough just to be called a class act.

Mickelson's strategy talk must-see TV

What's more fun than listening to risk-mismanagement specialist Phil Mickelson talking it over with his caddie, Jim "Bones" Mackay, while stuck in the gorse at the British Open? Shoot, Mickelson would take a hit on 20. And they let everyone know what they're thinking -- or not thinking -- and that's a gas.

ESPN's Terry Gannon from yesterday's British Open: "Even the Canadians are cold here."

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Hey, get off John Sterling's back. OK, so after Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit he identified it as his 5,000th. But he got the home-run part right, and how often does that happen?