Yeah, you fucking statheads! You nerdlingers! Look at you cute little nerdfaces, trying to prove me wrong with your numbers and abbreviations. You are sucking all the joy out of the game by disagreeing with my asinine assertion that Derek Jeter is a comparable player to Joe Dimaggio. You probably ran straight to the computer when you read my column, didn't you? But you tripped when you ran because you are uncoordinated, nonathletic dorkwads! Ha ha...burn! You went straight to the comfort of your nourishing "statistics," those pathetic, robotic numbers that are your only friends in the entire world. And look at your funny little acronyms, EQA and something called "slugging percentage." HA HA HA! Like anyone even knows what those mean.Can we stop with the ridiculous comparisons of Derek Jeter to Joe DiMaggio? I remember ESPN had a graphic on SportsCenter about a month back, and now you're making the same comparison. Sure, the numbers look similar at first glance, but they're cherry-picked. Games are exactly the same, and hits are very similar (despite Jeter having 200 more ABs), so of course BA -- and to a lesser extent OBP -- are going to wind up similar as well. This totally ignores, though, just how completely different of hitters they were. Comparing the Translated Batting Statistics from Baseball Prospectus, DiMaggio destroys Jeter in career slugging, .647 to .490. Adjusted for all-time, DiMaggio's BRAA was 620 to Jeter's 408, and his career EqA was .327 to Jeter's current .304. These two players weren't similar at all, beyond the number of hits they accumulated.
-- Matt Simon, Carmel, Ind.I don't get it. Do statheads enjoy sucking the joy out of the game? Chill a little. I like numbers as much as the next guy, but lighten up and don't take every small reference as the human genome project. Did you happen to miss the point I clearly stated that DiMaggio was the superior slugger? This was not an exercise to trot out all your acronyms and translations and define with pinpoint accuracy that -- whoa! -- DiMaggio was a better hitter than Jeter. It was, as stated, a simple exercise to show their statistical similarities (I addressed their differences, which are obvious) at the point when Jeter played as many career games as DiMaggio did.
You motherfucking, joy-killing bastards. Put on your taped-up Urkel glasses and take a look at reality. Because reality is my fist meeting your glass jaw in about ten seconds if you don't get those fucking stats out of my face. I AM TOM VERDUCCI! I played right field for the Toronto Blue Jays! And Derek Jeter is as good as Joe Dimaggio because I said so. I am an expert, and I have learned things on the playing diamond that your brainless, soulless, heartless computer machines can't possibly comprehend. I bet Marilyn Monroe would have dumped Dimaggio for Jeter in a New York minute.
So Matt Simon, of Carmel, Ind., grab a pen out of that pocket protector and take a note: CHILL THE FUCK OUT. I DON'T CARE FOR YOUR TONE, NERDBOY.
