With the Major League Baseball season entering the final days, we have separated the good from the bad through the marathon 162 game season. Playoff spots are mostly all filled, with only the AL Wild Card spot still having to be decided. We have seen a whole bunch of great stories so far in 2014. Clayton Kershaw has had one of the most dominant seasons a starting pitcher has ever had. The Kansas City Royals are on the verge of clinching their first playoff spot in nearly 20 years. Youngsters like Jose Abreu and Giancarlo Stanton have proven that despite opinions to the contrary, pitching is not in total control of the game. However, one of the best stories that has been ongoing throughout the season came to a climax last night in Yankee Stadium. After a career spanning two decades, Derek Jeter hit a walk off single in his last at bat at Yankee Stadium, and gave us a seemingly perfect ending to a great career.
The New York Yankees are likely the most polarizing team in American professional sports. They are either loved or hated in the baseball world. There are Yankee fans all over the country, so their fandom really has no geographical boundaries, but most baseball fans have strong feelings about the Yankees. If I were to place myself on a "Yankee spectrum," I would probably be somewhere in the middle, which is not very typical of baseball fans. I guess I would consider myself closer to "hating" the Yankees than "loving" them, but in all honesty, I am mostly neutral. The old argument about the Yankees having so much more money than everyone else is officially bereft of merit now that so many teams have budgets that continually grow exponentially. Alex Rodriguez, who is certainly a very polarizing player, has basically been forgotten, and I think that has softened the stance of many people toward the Yankees. And probably most importantly, the Yankees have simply not played deep into October year after year like they had been doing for so long. In recent years, teams like the St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Boston Red Sox, and Detroit Tigers (among others) have found more consistent success in the postseason than the Yankees. However, through all of this, there has been one unwavering centerpiece of the team, and that has been Derek Jeter.
As Jeter's career is coming to an end, a debate has been sparked about just how good Jeter is, and how he should be viewed from a historical point of view. Some people have pointed to a lack of individual achievements as evidence that he was not a truly great player, and I cannot say that they are wrong. Yet others claim that he is the greatest Yankee of all time thanks to the entirety of his career. When we look at the comparisons to former Yankee greats, we see that he does not lead the way in any major categories across the board.
Lou Gehrig was a career .340 hitter, while Jeter's career average was .309. Jeter didn't win as many World Series titles as guys like Joe DiMaggio or Yogi Berra. Jeter was nowhere close to others like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle in terms of power. He never won an MVP award either. Doubters point to things such as these and discount Jeter's achievements. But when you actually sit back and think about it, isn't being compared to legends like those enough to warrant praise? The Yankees, more than any other franchise in all of American sports, is littered with all time greats. Berra, Mantle, Ruth, DiMaggio, Gehrig. All of those men are some of the best to ever play the game. Just comparing Jeter to all of them should be enough to afford him all kinds of historical acclaim.
What the doubters and skeptics choose to overlook is what Jeter did when the stakes where at their highest. There is something to be said for coming up big when it matters most. Some athletes are able to do so, and others simply are not. Talent aside, there is just something deep down inside an athlete that brings out the best in tempestuous circumstances. Despite their individual greatness, guys like Peyton Manning, LeBron James, and Karl Malone just didn't have it. Are those three men all-time greats? Yes, they are. However, they just did not, or do not, seem to have the reliability to consistently deliver when the stakes are at their highest.
On the other hand, guys like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Usain Bolt, and Yogi Berra just continually deliver, or delivered, when they absolutely needed to. And if we were to put Derek Jeter into one of those categories, he would without question fit into the latter, and last night was just another example of why. Sure, the game did not mean a whole lot as the Orioles had already clinched a playoff berth and the Yankees will miss the playoffs this year. However, in the most dramatic of circumstances, Jeter delivered, and that is what his doubters continually overlook. Sure, Jeter may never have won an MVP award, but all-time greats like Al Kaline, Honus Wagner, Nap Lajoie, and Tony Gwynn never won the award either. Does that make them any less significant in the annals of baseball history? No, it does not.
So really, what my point is, is that we should appreciate greatness when we see it, and we should not try to nitpick and find fault with each and every individual that we watch play the games we love. Jeter will not go down as the greatest Yankee ever, but he surely deserves consideration for the top five (although I cannot place him in the top five because of the legends I mentioned before). But once again, let us put this into some sort of perspective. The fact that Jeter is even mentioned in the same breath as some of the greatest to ever play the game should be praise enough. The man will go down as a Yankee legend, and a baseball legend as well. He is a certain Hall of Famer, and some day, he will have his jersey retired and a plaque erected in his honor in center field at Yankee Stadium. In an era of free agency and nine digit contracts, Jeter was a mainstay. Whoever it is that replaces Jeter as the Opening Day shortstop for the Yankees next year will face a basically impossible task of filling the shoes of one of the greatest Yankees ever. So how about we stop trying to downplay what Jeter did in his career and just take a moment to embrace his place in baseball history. Whether you are a Yankee lover or a Yankee hater, I think you at least owe the game that much.
Daily Giants Update: Last night was one of the most dominant performances the Giants have put on in recent memory, as a 45-14 win in Washington really made me feel a whole lot better about the team. The new offense seems to be finding its groove, as Eli Manning played a great game, and Larry Donnell seems to be ready to make a name for himself among NFL tight ends. A 31 point win in a divisional game is surely never a bad thing, and now we get an extra few days of rest before the Atlanta Falcons come to Giants Stadium next Sunday. Both Dallas and Philadelphia have tough games coming up this weekend, so hopefully at least one of them loses. If that happens, our prospects in the division will look a whole lot better than they did two weeks ago.
Daily Diamondbacks Update: It is almost a given that Arizona will finish 2014 with the worst record in all of baseball, so obviously, it is hard to find positives here. The staff is being completely overhauled, as Kevin Towers was let go earlier in the week, and Kirk Gibson was let go today. I liked Gibson, but I am beyond excited to see Towers shown the door, as he has done nothing but make bad deals since he took over as our GM. Obviously, with a season as bad as 2014, changes needed to be made, and they have been. We are just playing for pride at this point, and the offseason will be all about getting healthy (Daniel Hudson, Paul Goldschmidt, Patrick Corbin) and getting ready for 2015.
Daily Rangers Update: The NHL preseason is officially underway, and the Rangers are in the midst of a game with the Chicago Blackhawks tonight. We are actually less than two full weeks away from the beginning of the regular season, and the Rangers will open in St. Louis against a formidable Blues team. It seems like it has come out of nowhere, but get ready for hockey!
Daily Nets Update: The NBA season is still over a month away, but it is close enough to start getting excited about the 2014-15 Nets. Brook Lopez will be back and healthy, new additions like Jarrett Jack, Cory Jefferson, and Markel Brown will be intriguing, and mainstays like Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and Kevin Garnett will be back as well. I was also happy to see Mason Plumlee get a lot of work with the U.S. national team earlier this summer, and I think that will be great for his mindset coming into 2014. My expectations are not of championship levels, but I think the Nets should be in store for a pretty good season.
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