Friday Feature -- Farewell to the Captain

Derek Jeter was never my favorite Yankee, but I will sure miss watching him play.  His last game in Yankee Stadium represents the end of a two-decade long era of World Series championships and perennial trips to the playoffs.  In addition to the heroics in the video, it is pretty amazing to consider that Jeter was never once tossed by an umpire from a game in entire his twenty-year big league career.

I would rank him as the sixth greatest Yankee, behind Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and Yogi Berra.  I saw Mantle and Berra play in person (at the end or their respective careers), but I watched Jeter's entire career, and loved every inning of it.

Comments

[Kevin]

I don't want to start a fight here—I have a lot of respect for Jeter because of the way he carries himself and has never had a whiff of controversy around his professional or personal life (rare these days). That being said, if you take an unbiased look at this stats, he was a good player but not a great player (especially when compared to other Yankees, and I say this as a Dodger fan). He was a steady, fairly consistent, good player. One can never know these things for sure, but if he had played for the Twins or the Tigers for all those years, we probably would have never heard of him. He had a good shot at MVP in 2006, but lost to a Twin of all people. His game-winning hit last night was like it was scripted by Hollywood, and good for him. Good players should make good plays. It just seems that MLB is over hyping Jeter because he fit the Johnny Bravo suit (am I showing my age?) that they needed to boost their image.

[Kim Riddlebarger]

Kevin:

Agreed. But don't let Jeter's average to poor defense in the last few years obscure the fact that he'll go down in the top ten of all time in hits and games played. In some ways, the next iteration of the Yankees will be better off with a younger, better defender at short.

What makes Derek's career so remarkable are the many career highlights including last night, and the fact that during his entire career of over 2000 games, Jeter played fewer then 10 games when the Yankees were out of playoff contention. BTW--both the Twins and the Tigers could have drafted him before the Yankees got him.

I'm sad to see him go because his departure means the end of an era for the Yankees. I've been a Yankees fan for 50 years now and far and away I liked this dynasty team best. Bernie, Posada, Mo, Tino, Andy P, and now Jeter are gone, those who have replaced them are not as good, nor do I like them as much.

[Kevin]

Kim, you'll get no argument from me on any of that. Go Dodgers! :-)