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New York Yankees’ Derek Jeter smiles at Yankee Stadium, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014 in New York. Image: Seth Wenig/Associated Press Perhaps it’s that misty-eyed “America’s pastime” trope. Maybe it’s that the game lacks a clock’s anxiety-inducing march toward 0:00. Or maybe it’s childhood memories of post-game orange slices for everyone. Whatever the reason, baseball seems to lend itself to treacly nostalgia more than any other U.S. sport. But do you know what you get if you take all of baseball’s latent, maudlin sentimentality, then infuse that with some good old fashioned NYC-centrism and — most of all — a ton of cold, hard cash? You get the longest goodbye in the history of goodbyes — or, in other words, Derek Jeter‘s months-long retirement ceremony. Ah, Derek Sanderson Jeter, the unassuming kid from Kalamazoo, Michigan, who broke into the bigs at age 20 in 1995 then spent the next two decades becoming a baseball icon before playing his final home game at Yankee Stadium this Thursday (a weekend series in Boston ends his career for good). Ah, Derek Jeter, otherwise known simply — and regally — as The Captain, a superstar on the diamond and the smoothest of operators off it. Ah, Derek Jeter, perhaps the most marketable baseball star of all time, the player whose pinstriped number 2 shirt is the best-selling baseball jersey in history. And now we’re finally getting somewhere. When Gatorade released a breathless Jeter tribute last Thursday, it wasn’t even the first hashtag-brand to put out a lengthy, glossy YouTube spot full of soft lighting and cliched NYC imagery in honor of Jeter. Nope, Nike beat Gatorade to that punch way back in July, before Jeter’s final All-Star Game. (Final season, final All-Star Game — we can only assume some enterprising ball-boy will frame the newspaper Jeter reads during his Final Yankee Stadium B.M., but haven’t fact-checked this to be sure.) To correspond with its Jeter tribute, Nike tried to shove the hashtag #RE2PECT down our throats. Because he wears the number two, get it? And that uh, kind of looks like an “S”? Do you get it? Mutilating the very word “respect” as a sign of #RE2PECT for one as famously #CLA22Y as Jeter could strike some as baldly cynical, of course — a bit #DI2RE2PECTFUL even. But then again, this is about re$pect more than it’s about #RE2PECT. (Nike even has a “Re2pect Collection;” T-shirts are $35.) Re2pect @jumpman23 pic.twitter.com/OYemkDXIzC — Mark Wahlberg (@mark_wahlberg) September 2, 2014 Nike and Gatorade aren’t alone here — oh no, not by a long-shot. You could see this all coming way back in February, when Jeter first announced the 2014 season would be his last. Derek Jeter smiles at a news conference after being named American League Rookie of the Year in 1996. Image: Ron Frehm/Associated Press Now here we are. Average ticket prices for Jeter’s final home game exceed $800. Toys — toys! — are reenacting his top 10 career highlights. Tickets for a “Farewell Derek Jeter […]

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Home plate umpire Gerry Davis ejects New York Yankees starting pitcher Michael Pineda after a foreign substance was discovered on his neck in the second inning of the Yankees’ baseball game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston, Wednesday, April 23, 2014.Image: Elise Amendola/Associated Press New York Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was ejected from a Wednesday night game against the Boston Red Sox for having a swath of pine tar on his neck, then suspended for 10 games by Major League Baseball on Thursday. After Pineda’s ejection, many casual followers of the sport had similar reactions: Pine tar? What’s up with that? What is this, 1919? The first step to understanding Pineda’s pine-tar-gate is accepting that baseball, more than any other sport, relies on a set of codified standards that don’t always jive with what you’ll find in the rule book. To wit: Pine tar is illegal for use by pitchers seeking to improve their grip on the ball, but it’s widely acknowledged that pitchers use it on an extremely regular basis. Which is what makes Pineda’s case so interesting — it’s a window into the mysterious and often inexplicable world of baseball decorum. Like stolen bases, hit batters and more, pine tar comes with a whole set of decorum-related associations and assumptions that many outside the baseball world struggle to understand. “A stolen base late in a blowout game doesn’t have to be a message, but it can be — and if that’s the intent, then that intent will be received,” says Jason Turbow, author of The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime Why is baseball so uniquely locked up in these notions and codified procedures? Turbow points to two reasons. For one, as the oldest and most nostalgic of American sports, baseball tradition is a big deal. Secondly, Turbow says, baseball’s relatively slow pace means more time to “imbue meaning,” real or perceived, on things that happen on the field. Now back to Pineda’s pine tar. Pine tar remains illegal for pitchers, under a rule banning them from using “any substance” for enhanced grip on the mound. Batters, however, are allowed to cover the handles of their bats in the stuff to gain a better hold. Pineda’s problem wasn’t so much that he used pine tar, but how he used it — and how that violated baseball’s unstated rules of behavior. Here is why. He was spotted with a glob of pine tar on his hand in a game, also against the Boston Red Sox, on April 10. That sparked some controversy after the fact, but he was not ejected and the Red Sox did not formally complain. Red Sox manager John Farrell, himself a former pitcher, even said before Wednesday’s game that, “I would expect that if it’s used it’s more discreet than the last time.” Not exactly a searing indictment. He used pine tar against the very same opponent in two consecutive starts against them […]

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