(EDITOR’S NOTE : from  time to time, Bronx baseball executive Randy L. graces CSTB with his observations on matters sporting and otherwise.  In the wake of SNY “Loudmouths” co-host Chris Carlin calling Yankee captain Derek Jeter “a fraud” earlier this week, Randy offered, no, he insisted on having his say – GC)

Greetings, Yankee Universe (and the small number of this blog’s readers who can get this far without the help of a special-education tutor).  The 2014 MLB season has been challenging for all of us.  When we broke camp last spring, the organization had 3 simple items on our agenda.  The first two —  win our 28th World Championship, find a way to escape our contractual obligations to Alex Rodriguez  —- have clearly not been completed to anyone’s satisfaction.  But the third task on our checklist —- spend the entire year paying homage to the greatness, class and everlasting clutchiness (clutchitude?  clutchworthiness?) of my captain and yours, Derek Jeter —- has in my estimation, been handled with all the understated elegance & grace you’ve come to associated with Jeter’s career.

As befitting our modern age, these efforts to honor Derek have not been without detractors. ESPN.com’s Buster Olney has the unmitigated gall to suggest our club would’ve been better off had Jeter been kept out of the lineup, a suggestion so fantastic, I am resisting every urge in body to have this columnist fired and then “disappeared” as some of my friends in the security business like to say.

Suppose, for instance, earlier this year, you purchased a ticket to see the Broadway musical adaptation of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, starring the multi-talented Neil Patrick Harris.  Though upon arriving at the Belasco Theatre, you’re told that Mr. Harris is indisposed and performing in his place will an understudy, a person with no serious credentials to speak of and relatively little star power, charisma, skill, really, any redeeming qualities whatsoever.  For the sake of argument, let’s  just call this performer, “Brian Cashman”.   Would you, the paying customer, welcome this pretender with open arms? Or would you instead, scream bloody murder and attempt to find the Belasco Theatre’s equivalent of well, me, and demand a refund?   I think we already know the answer to this question.

That said, Olney’s attacks on this organization are mild when compared to the slurs delivered by the thoroughly unpleasant Chris Carlin.  The latter expressed the ill-founded opinion that Derek Jeter is “a fraud” and seems to consider our shortstop’s Farewell Tour some sort of exercise in egomania.

It would be an understatement to say that I’m shocked.  For starters, I don’t know what’s harder to believe, that anyone would pay Carlin to appear on television or that the New York Mets have some sort of cable channel of their own.  Though I’m happy to know the production team behind the old Robin Byrd Show (ask your parents….or John Sterling) have landed on their feet with SNY’s “Loudmouths”, who the hell is Chris Carlin to be questioning Derek Jeter’s credibility?

I don’t suppose many of you are familiar with a piece of SNY lowbrow dross called “Beer Money”, but I have it on very good authority that throughout this game show’s run, contestants were routinely fed answers to questions in a manner not unlike the TOTAL SCAM depicted above. So really, Chris, who’s the fucking fraud now? A guy who’ll be in the Hall Of Fame on the first ballot or a local TV/radio schulb whose parting gifts to dates usually consist of penicillin and sealed copies of “Afterlife With Archie”?

But whatever. Who’d pick “Beer Money” or “Loudmouths” when you could watch Michael Kay’s “CenterStage” with Kevin Pollak instead? NOT ME.

Thanks for everything, Derek!