It's time for another episode of America's favorite documentation of Egregious Jeter Shots, The Producers! Let's watch!



For this one I just let it play out instead of adding wacky commentary or whatever. This is from Monday night. Let's review the scene:

First, keep in mind this is the Red Sox station. It's the ninth. Jeter led off the inning by lining out. Then Swisher singled. They pinch-ran for him, and NESN cut to a scene of Swisher being congratulated as he got back to the dugout. Then A-Rod came up, and had an 0-2 count. So this was a few minutes after Jeter had batted. No one was talking about him. Don went into some game notes about Andrew Bailey as the camera showed him on the mound...then they cut to the batter...and then...

Jeter scratching an ingrown hair on his neck with his thumb!

So let's go back: That cameraman on the first base side had followed Swisher back to the dugout. Fine. Then as the congratulations died down, he stayed focused on the dugout. Almost like a peeping tom in a tree, he opted to film not the game, but Derek Jeter's face in close-up. Or he was told to do this. Because hey, if something happens, they'd like to (for some unknown reason) show us what Jeter and only Jeter thinks of it. That would be utterly ridiculous enough. But on top of that, they also want to show us what Jeter's doing (nothing) if NOTHING happens, which they did, while A-Rod was batting, and the announcer was talking about Andrew Bailey.

I watch a lot of baseball. For the most part, every shot is shown for a reason, usually corresponding with what's going on in the game, and/or what the announcers are talking about. The exception is that our overlord must be shown every so often, or he shall turn us into jack-in-the-boxes. That's the only explanation I can come up with as to why this happens every Yankee game, on every network showing it. (And this wasn't a case of: We're showing a series of close-ups of players to show the drama of the game--every shot was accounted for except the neck-scratch. I almost feel sometimes like it's the cameramen who are addicted to Jeter, and the producer/director will cut to their cam without them knowing just to "catch them in the act" while he laughs at them. That's another theory anyway.)

Bonus Jeter moment: Before the game, during the anthem after the 9/11 ceremonies, both teams were lined up on the foul lines. They cut to a shot of the Yanks, the camera scanning down the line slowly. Jeter became visible, and I said at that moment, "I dare you to keep going down the line and not stop and zoom in on Jeter, I double dare you, motherfucker!" (Imagine a Samuel L. Jackson voice.) Sure enough, that NESN cameraman got to Jeter, felt the electric shock in his Jeter Meter brand TM ankle bracelet, stopped the camera in its tracks, and began a sexy, dramatic zoom into the face of God.