At a certain point, there’s just no denying the obvious: Derek Jeter doesn’t like Alex Rodriguez.

He doesn’t like his attitude on the field, he doesn’t like the way he conducts himself off the field and, at the moment, he definitely doesn’t like that A-Roid has forced him to spend the first week of spring training talking about performance enhancing drugs.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a criticism. I don’t like the guy either.

But, still, Jeet is Jeet, and he gets that part of the job description includes showing up at annoying press conferences to support detested teammates and making statements to publicly back them.  It’s just that, given how long it took for him to muster the strength, I have a feeling it wasn’t exactly an easy pill to swallow.

With regard to A-Roid’s most recent scandal, Jeter naturally said all the right things.  That everyone makes mistakes, that the slate was clean and that it was now his job to support A-Roid through this difficult time.  Sure, he’s disappointed in Alex.  But not as disappointed as he imagines Alex is in himself.

Sort of like the Johnny Damon, “Steroids aren’t murder” approach.  Just slightly more refined.

But Jeet also used this public platform as an opportunity to make clear the fact that this period of time has been inappropriately dubbed the “Steroid Era.”  He commented, “That’s the thing that gets irritating. I think it sends the wrong message to baseball fans and kids, saying that everybody was doing it. That’s just not the truth.”

The fact that Jeter had to make a point of separating himself from A-Roid while he was in the middle of defending him sends a pretty strong message about what he really thinks.

In other words, “Don’t judge that guy for what he did.  But don’t judge me for what he did either.  Cause I’m with you; that guy’s the worst.”

Technically, Jeter hasn’t done anything wrong here.  The only thing he’s guilty of is not handling this with  1000% Jeter-like grace and perfection.  The guy’s human, he’s annoyed, and if he hasn’t been A-Roid’s number one cheerleader, I don’t begrudge him that.

People want Jeter to make speeches, give pep talks, and get everyone all worked up.  Well, guess what?  Derek Jeter’s not David Cone.  He has always had a very specific style of leadership.   He leads by example.  He leads by going on the field and playing his asset off like his very life depended on the outcome of every last play and at-bat.

So if people are counting on him to get the clubhouse together in the wake of this crisis, I think you can expect that.  I just think he’s going to do it the only way he knows how.  By trying to get past all the crapelbon so he can focus on doing what he came here to do in the first place:  Play ball.