A Sox fan giving Jeter his due

I'm posting like crazy today, but I'm finding all sorts of great links.

Red Sox madman Bill Simmons refers to Derek Jeter's All-Star Game snub:

Look, you know I hate the Yankees. It's well-documented. But you can't have an All-Star Game without Jeter. You just can't. The NBA mentality should come into play here -- make sure your most visible stars are there on All-Star Weekend no matter how well they're playing. I always love when people get all holier-than-thou about picking an All-Star team, like anyone's going to remember in five years that Jose Guillen got shafted. Who cares?

The following guys should make the team every year unless they're trapped under something: Tejada, Guerrero, Manny, Jeter, A-Rod, Big Papi, Rivera, Clemens, Pedro, Ichiro, Schilling, Big Unit and Pujols. Those are the 13 biggest stars in baseball. You can't have the All-Star Game without any of them. Every December, we could even form a committee to determine if anyone from the Top 13 should lose their spot because they went Piazza on us, leaving us no choice but to take them off the list. And maybe next December, we could add a couple of guys who made The Leap -- like Mark Teixeira, Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis.

Of course, we have a better chance of dividing the Gaza Strip than coming up with a fool-proof All-Star selection method. Every time it seems like they're headed in the right direction, something happens like "Shea Hillenbrand over Derek Jeter" and it completely undermines the whole process. So why not protect the stars who absolutely have to be in the game? Do you really think the NBA would ever knock KG out of the 2006 All-Star Game, or the NFL would ever stand in Peyton Manning's way when he was gunning for yet another Pro Bowl MVP? Come on.

Although I don't always agree with the "just pick the famous names" premise, this is a great argument for New York's crown prince. And, oh, for a game that determines World Series home-field advantage, there's nobody more clutch than Jeter. Except Hideki Matsui. But, oh, he didn't make the All-Star team, either.