YANKEES AND PIE-GATE?

The New England Patriots had spygate. Do the Yankees have pie-gate? Now don’t get me wrong, spygate was about the possibility the Pats were cheating via videotape. Pie-gate is not even close to being something that serious. Actually, it’s kind of funny.

On Friday night, the Yankees went into the bottom of the 9th, score tied. Jeter got on and made his way to 3rd. With nobody out, Jeter was 90 feet from scoring the winning run, A-Rod came up to bat. A long pop fly or base hit The game is over. However what did happen was a wild pitch, Jeter took off from third and slid into home safely. Game over and theeeee Yankees win! So, walk off win – someone is getting pie right? With AJ gone, reporters wondered aloud who would replace AJ as the pie guy? Giradi was quoted as saying “Probably Swish” when asked during Spring Training. It made sense. Nick Swisher said he was all for it, that he loved the tradition and thought it should continue sans AJ. He even contemplated who would sub for him if HE got the walk off. So, pie for Jeter delivered by Swisher, right? Wrong!

Many theories abounded about why no one got Jeter with the walk off pie. They ranged from the tradition left with AJ going to Pittsburgh to it wasn’t really a walk off. I, myself, have my own theory. Everyone knows Jeter likes to be in control in situations, especially those not on the field. For Swisher, he probably thought that Alex would get the fly ball to score Jeter and he hits Alex with the pie (as we know conversely to Jeter, Alex lives for that type of attention). But that damn wild pitch and slide into home changed everything. I’m sure Swisher, in those first monments, didn’t know what to do. For Jeter’s part, he played better than anyone could have. Instead of looking over his shoulder like a nervous cat, he kept his eye on the screen in centerfield during the post game interview, which the interview was being shown on. Using it like a rearview mirror, in the event anyone was going to try to give him a puss full of pie. Smart man. Of course, nothing happened.

Then began the questions by reporters. As Woodward and Bernstein did years prior, they tried to get to the bottom of this potential “cover up”. Swish was quoted as saying “I’m not the guy, it can’t be a position player” TRANSLATION “There was no way I was hitting the captain with a towel full of whipped or shaving cream – I’m no dummy”. But saying that makes Derek look like he is not a team player – and that is even worse than the pie. So, he went with “who me?”. Maybe what he could have said was “We won on a wild pitch, who get’s the pie? Detroit’s pitcher?” and walk away laughing. So, the truth behing pie-gate remains a mystery..

Obviously, this is all tongue and cheek and in my opinion, it really doesn’t matter either way if they continue the walk off pie tradition. So long as the Yankees win, I don’t care how they celebrate.

As I said that night – two rules in life are no one puts baby in a corner and no one hits Derek Jeter with a pie!