The case for Mr. Jeter as American League MVP is being made by more subjective arguments. "How do you measure the value of inspiration and professionalism?" asks Marty Appel, author of "Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain." "Some people will argue that intangibles don't exist, but in the ninth inning of close games everybody believes in them."
Thurman Munson's and Mr. Jeter's personalities were different; Munson was surly and pugnacious, while Mr. Jeter still projects the image of boyish enthusiasm he had as a rookie in 1995. But, says Mr. Appel, the two share one important characteristic: "They both lead by example and performance. They helped make their teams better just by being there. No one ever slacked off with either of those guys on the field." To which Mike Ozanian of Forbes.com adds: "Jeter has been the anchor on a team that could have been derailed by injuries to key players like Alex Rodriguez. Winning has to count for something."
The campaign for Teixeira was inevitable. He has driven in a fat load of runs for the team with the best record in baseball, and
even reasonable people think that should count for something. (It shouldn't, but whatever.) And someone was bound to bring up Morales, undeserving or not, if only because he's put up the most surprising numbers on a team that has put up a lot of them. Jeter is another matter entirely. Barra admits as much, writing, "No one would argue that Mr. Jeter's statistics are better than those of Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer." An MVP for Jeter wouldn't be an award for performance; it'd be an honorarium for Jeter's lengthy service to the sportswriting profession as a catch-basin for all its loose ideals about hustle and leadership and sportsmanship. (It'd be cousin to the vote that put Jim Rice in the Hall of Fame not because he deserved it but because he could be turned into a living PSA about steroids.)
Baseball is full of unworthy MVPs - Jimmy Rollins and Justin Morneau come readily to mind. But at least for them, people had the better sense to make specious arguments on faulty statistical grounds rather than specious arguments on matters of character. Jeter's MVP would be a case of the mythmakers congratulating themselves on the quality of their myth, of sportswriters swallowing their own line of arrant bull %$+*.
