Yankees Tell Players to be More Like Russell Wilson, Not Cam Newton

This is great. Just really, really great. The Yankees offered a media training session to their players as they reported for Spring Training and the gist of it was: "be like Russell Wilson, don't be like Cam Newton." Amazingly we are still using Cam Newton as an example of the Bad Way to respond to worthless questions, even though we know that A) the questions were worthless, and B) Newton abruptly left because he was actually reacting to the NFL's bizarre decision to have both sides talk to reporters in the same space.

We are still talking about it, though, which is bad for everyone involved. So rather than actively point out the futility of the post-game press conference genre, the Yankees would prefer their players prostrate themselves before the press and give them exactly what they want.

From ESPN NY's Andrew Marchand:

This is funny, that the Yankees used Russell Wilson as that example of the Anti-Cam. It's been done a lot recently, of course, and it's a natural comparison to make since they are both well-known and play the same position. But the Yankees also had a guy who was always accountable, always stood in front of the locker until the final question was asked, and always represented the team well. He has also (as far as I know) not had sex with Ciara. He's been retired for a minute, but I'm sure the Yankees could get Derek Jeter to come in and give some tips on how to wrap the media around one's finger. Because that is what this is about. That is what Russell Wilson does, and what Cam Newton failed to do. If you give the media what they want, without saying anything too outlandish, then you are golden. If you don't give them anything, like Cam, or you give them too much, like say Richard Sherman early in his career, things will go badly for you.

That was the genius of Derek Jeter. He spent 20 years standing in front of reporters giving them unfettered access to exactly nothing. He was also fortunate enough to win right away, so he could spend the rest of his career saying things like "just trying to win games" and never really add anything to his repertoire. In reality, Russell Wilson and Derek Jeter, routinely gave reporters the same amount of actual information that Cam Newton did in his Super Bowl press conference, but Russell and Jeets did it in a way that was palatable—they played the game the right way—whereas Cam was an actual person about it.

h/t Eye On Baseball