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Derek Jeter responds to Skip Bayless’ steroid implication: ‘This is a first for me, man’

With two ballplayers receiving drug suspensions in the span of a week, it was only a matter of time until a media member took charge down a predictably stupid path.

And surprise! The offender in question was none other than ESPN's resident balloonhead Skip Bayless, who immediately plucked Derek Jeter's great 2012 season and plunked it down in the middle of a cloud of suspicion created solely by his own blather.

While Bayless stopped short of saying Jeter is benefiting from performance-enhancing drugs — "I have no idea," he admitted — he didn't pass up an opportunity to make Jeter the sole focus of his jaw-clenched stink eye.

It was an implication that Jeter didn't appreciate when a reporter told him about it later.

From the New York Daily News:

"Whenever you have people that anytime you bring something like this to light with guys that are doing things, it's like, now you have everybody questioning everything," Jeter said. "That's the unfortunate thing. Maybe Skip should be tested."

Asked if he was bothered by Bayless' backhanded accusation, Jeter shrugged.

"This is a first for me, man," Jeter said. "I don't know what to tell you ... What do you want me to say? I ain't getting involved with this, man. You can say whatever you want to say now, huh? There's no repercussions."

Nope. The only repercussion that Bayless will face is adding another piece to the case that he's a contrarian windbag who sold his soul to the devil and will say anything to grab a headline. Of course that's balanced out by the fact that Bayless is handsomely rewarded by ESPN to act in such a manner. We're playing right into their hands by making this a big deal when we really should simply be waiting for ol' Skip and his co-horts to return to their full-time jobs of saying "Tim Tebow" over and over again while banging a pair of cymbals like a toy monkey.

At the same time, it doesn't feel right to let such stupidity go unchecked. While no one's disagreeing that the steroid era has put everyone's achievements under the microscope, you have to include everyone on the slide when doing so. Individual witch hunts aren't fair to anyone when they're started without a single shred of evidence.

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