A very minor Derek Jeter memory

Several years ago, my wife, in-laws and I went on a tour of the old Yankee Stadium as part of some package where you saw the stadium, took a bus tour around the Bronx and ate lunch at some terrific Italian restaurant the name of which I do not remember.

Needless to say, my main interest was in the stadium tour, although the bus tour was surprisingly interesting, and I already mentioned the great lunch. Unlike a tour I later took in Phoenix where the perhaps-teenage tour guide pronounced Robin Yount's last name "Yunt," our guide at Yankee Stadium was a longtime employee who closed the tour by showing us his World Series ring, which appeared to basically be a convenient play to store lots of diamonds.

It was during the off-season, and a pretty raw day as I recall, but we hit all the important spots, most of which are standard on a tour -- the press box, the edge of the field, the dugout, some of the behind-the-scenes hallways -- and, of course, since it was Yankee Stadium, we went out to Monument Park.

And we went into the clubhouse. With the exception of Anfield, it was like any stadium or arena tour I've taken since, where you can see the clubhouse or locker room, but don't go much past the inside of the door and stand behind a rope. Our guide pointed out all the lockers we'd be interested in, including Thurman Munson's unused locker, and then pointed out Derek Jeter's.

If I remember correctly, it was on our left, in the middle of the group of lockers on that side of the room. Our guide informed us that until September call-ups required its use, the locker next to Jeter's was left vacant in order to hold his fan mail. One of our fellow tour-goers asked if Jeter answered all his fan mail, and our guide's answer is etched into my memory.

"It is a physical impossibility."

Yankees legends ... then and now

Pretty much the first thing you see when you get to Yankee Stadium.

You can't be a Yankees fan, or even be aware of the team, for more than about five minutes without being exposed to the history.

A major reason for that, of course, is that there's so much of it between the World Series wins and the number of great players who have worn the pinstripes, but a lot of it is that the team itself puts so much emphasis on its history.

From Babe Ruth Plaza outside the stadium, to Monument Park, to the retired numbers to the fact that Joe Girardi wears No. 28 because that will be the number of the team's next World Series win, the Yankees want you to know this is not a baseball team, but an institution.

Only one single-digit number left, and that'll be gone soon.

My wife and I went to Yankee Stadium yesterday, which coincided with Joe Torre's No. 6 being retired and him getting a monument in Monument Park. Between seeing players like David Cone, Paul O'Neill, Bernie Williams, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Tino Martinez and Andy Pettitte and the video highlights of Torre's years with the Yankees, the ceremony was a reminder that those teams from 1996 to 2007 were really something special.

And yet my wife constantly accuses me of hating Joe Torre. She has a point ... kind of.

No doubt, I have my issues with how Torre managed the team his last few years because I think his calm nature, which was such a positive attribute for years, became laxity. It angers me greatly that he didn't have the Yankees bunt on a one-legged Curt Schilling in the 2004 ALCS, or that he didn't come out of the dugout and do ... something ... when the bugs were eating Joba Chamberlain alive in Cleveland.

And I will never understand why a man who had Bob Gibson as a teammate let pitchers, particularly Red Sox pitchers, hit Derek Jeter over and over with no hint of retaliation.

But with all that being said, Torre was a great manager for the Yankees, their most-successful manager of my lifetime. He's more than worthy of both the Hall of Fame and his place in Monument Park, and I enjoyed seeing him receive the latter.

It's hard to see him, but the passenger in the front of the cart is only one of the handful of greatest catchers ever.

On most other teams, Yogi Berra, who rode in the golf cart with Torre and his family from Monument Park, would probably be the first or second guy you thought of if asked the greatest player in the team's history. With the Yankees, you'd probably think of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle before you thought of Berra, even though Berra is probably one of the three to five greatest catchers who ever played the game. (If you want to say Johnny Bench was the best, who else would you say before Berra? If you have any names, you probably don't have many.)

His biographer Allen Barra goes one further, writing in his book "Brushbacks and Knockdowns" (which I recently reread) that Berra was the most valuable team player in any sport of the 20th century, based on his own success as a player, his team's success and the number of pitchers who had their best (and sometimes only good) years pitching to Berra.

And oh yeah, he was part of the D-Day invasion, so not only is he one of the last surviving links to great Yankee teams of decades past, he's one of a dwindling number of surviving World War II veterans.

Simply put, Yogi Berra is a national treasure. Hopefully, he'll be around for quite a few more years to come.

An all-time great, and I saw him from the start.

Derek Jeter didn't play yesterday, since it was a day game after a night game. All the fans saw of him was him escorting Don Zimmer's wife to her seat for Torre's ceremony.

When I stop long enough to strip away all the debates about how good a fielder he was, the fawning articles about his Jeter-ness or the mocking of same, I realize that for the past 19 years, I've watched the career of someone who's going to be remembered as one of the all-time greats of the game. He's not at the very top of the list with Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron or that class, but he's in that next group or two below.

Once he retires at the end of this season, he's going to be sixth all-time in hits, behind five guys named Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Tris Speaker. That's pretty decent company.

While there have been better players than Jeter both throughout the history of baseball and over the course of his career -- the thing that has made him so great is that he was somewhere between very good and outstanding for a long time -- I'm not sure we'll see a star like Jeter for years to come. 

His career has been a perfect confluence of factors: the greatness on the field, all the postseason success, his being in New York his whole career, the good looks, the lack of controversy ... and that's going to be hard to replicate. Mike Trout, who is both a phenomenal player and has "All-American boy" written all over him, is probably closest, but he needs to get himself to October.

For Yankees fans, he is the final person still playing who gave those Torre teams (plus the 2009 team) their identity. Those were the teams of Jeter, Pettitte, Williams, Posada, O'Neill, Cone, Martinez, Matsui and Mariano Rivera, and once Jeter is gone, none of them will be left.

On the field, the Yankees, with Stephen Drew at shortstop, beat the White Sox 5-3. Yet I wonder who will provide the identity of the next great Yankee team, when and if that happens.  

Where the Yankees got it all wrong

I see a lot of #firecashman these days on Twitter when I'm watching a Yankees game. It is frustrating these days, with the Yankees bumping along at 29-28, five games out of first place and looking like the very symbol of mediocrity or worse, with a run differential of minus-26.

Yes, Derek Jeter's swan song could be a pretty miserable year, so wanting to get rid of general manager Brian Cashman is an unsurprising way to lash out. After all, he did such horrible things in the offseason like disrespecting Robinson Cano by only offering seven years and $175 million.

If that was Cashman's only terrible move, it would be one thing ... but no, he had to make it worse by signing Jacoby Ellsbury (.298/.355/.426, nine home runs, 53 RBI, 52 steals) and Carlos Beltran (.296/.339/.491, 24 home runs, 84 RBI) to replace Vernon Wells (.233/.282/.349, 11 homers, 50 RBI), Ichiro (although he's still around as a part-time player -- .262/.297/.342, seven homers, 35 RBI) and Curtis Granderson (.229/.317/.407, seven homers, 15 RBI in 61 games. In 56 games with the Mets this year, his numbers are .212/.323/.354 with six homers and 27 RBI).

So Cashman clearly screwed up the outfield by getting two good players to replace three not-so-good ones. Then he had to turn around and sign Brian McCann (.256/.336/.461, 20 homers, 57 RBI) to catch instead of, among others, Chris Stewart (.211/.293/.272, four homers, 25 RBI). Yes, yes, I know they should have never let Russell Martin (.226/.327/.377, 15 homers, 55 RBI with Pittsburgh) go, since he was obviously Thurman Munson reincarnated.

And he had the nerve to think that a healthier Derek Jeter, even approaching 40, would be better than ... who played shortstop for the Yankees last year when Jeter was out? Who didn't? I personally enjoy all the love for Brendan Ryan, who's a wonderful fielder but for his career would be a good-hitting National League pitcher (.238/.299/.320).

Remember the Lyle Overbay Experience ... the .242/.295/393 with 14 home runs and 59 RBI? For a guy signed off the street in spring training, he actually didn't do too badly, but Cashman had the nerve to let him go in favor of a theoretically healthy Mark Teixeira.

(By the way, I got all my numbers from here if you want to look yourself.)

I know I'm no general manager, but by the looks of it, on paper the Yankees improved in left field (since Ellsbury allowed Brett Gardner to move to left), right field, first base, catcher, shortstop and designated hitter (either Alfonso Soriano or Soriano and Ichiro in a platoon instead of the fossilized remains of Travis Hafner or whatever other player was getting a partial day off).

Second base was a loss, a big loss, and I don't know how to judge third base.

But Cashman needs to be fired because:

• Ellsbury, McCann and Beltran haven't been that good, and Beltran has gotten hurt.
• Teixeira and Jeter clearly aren't all the way back, and Teixeira has been hurt.
• Soriano has been Soriano, which means he may hit a bunch of home runs any day now, but there will be multiple games in a row where it's a triumph for him to make contact.
• And oh by the way, C.C. Sabathia's transition to an old pitcher is now complete.

But they're cheap! Kendrys Morales! Make trades!

Yes, a $203 million payroll is practically Houston Astros-like. Clearly, they should have used more money on another first baseman/DH who's so good that he's still unemployed today (although, to be fair, the draft pick attached has a lot to do with that). And they can trade for more stars with their ... virtually non-existent farm system.

I can't stress the last point enough, and if you want to rip Cashman and the Yankees' front office for this, go ahead; I'll be right there with you. What player in the Yankees minor-league system is ready to be an everyday, contributing player in the major leagues right now? In 2015? In 2016? Whenever Gary Sanchez finally arrives? (I swear, for a catcher who's only 21, it seems like I've been hearing about Sanchez for about 10 years.)

Or would you rather trade Dellin Betances, who actually is homegrown (Congratulations Yankees, you got one!) and has been a revelation out of the bullpen?

Let me put it to you this way. It looks like the Red Sox have lost all faith in Will Middlebrooks, and he's likely to go down in history as the guy who got his girlfriend canned from her TV job. He's 25 years old, and if for some reason he wound up in New York (slim and no chance), he'd be the best young player in their organization right now.

So aside from presiding over a terrible farm system, Cashman's biggest mistake is that the players he signed, who were good players just last year, haven't worked out.

By all means, fire him for that.

Dreaming of a Jeter comeback

I had an awesome dream last night. You want to hear about it?

Of course you do.

Cue the harps.

I'm flipping through the Twitter machine, checking a little news, a little sports, the big U.S. Senate election here in Massachusetts yesterday.

And then I saw it, with a picture and everything, from Derek Jeter himself:

"Visit from Dr. Kelly over the weekend, who gave me the best news -- the green light to play games again!"

Wow! If that's true, it's awesome. Jayson Nix has done a nice job at shortstop in Jeter's absence, but still, this is Derek Jeter ... star, captain, talisman. (Why, yes, I do let English soccer terms slip into my dreams. Why do you ask?)

So I keep reading, and there's Yankees GM Brian Cashman confirming the news. Jeter would probably start his rehab stint in Tampa, first as designated hitter, then moving to shortstop. If all went well, he'd move up to Trenton for a few games, and then Scranton. Barring any setbacks, he might be back in the Yankees' lineup in a couple weeks, maybe even for the Twins series the weekend before the All-Star Break.

During the Yankees TV broadcast, Michael Kay and the gang are naturally stoked, and John Sterling is absolutely out of his tree on the radio. I'm pretty sure he even missed a catchphrase or two.

After the game, Jeter is all anyone wants to talk to Joe Girardi about, even though the Yankees won on a walkoff homer by Ichiro.


My fellow Yankees fans are also going nuts, knowing that the main man could be back before too much longer.

"Maybe this is the start," I think. "Jeter comes back, then A-Rod, then Granderson, then maybe Teixeira (spoiler alert: no). They've been pitching well, and if that keeps up ... ."

Katy Perry's "Wide Awake" comes on. No, I haven't asked Mrs. Last Honest if she chose it as her alarm for that reason.

Wow, that was quite a dream. It was like the dreams I still have a few times a year where I'm convinced I have a term paper due the next day, and I have to wake up to remember I haven't had any term papers due since 1996.

That tweet from Jeter seemed so ... real.

Derek Jeter, Skip Bayless and the cult of popularity

I don't watch First Take on ESPN much, if only because I work during the day. But I've heard that Skip Bayless caused a bit of a kerfuffle over something he said about Derek Jeter. (The quote is from the linked article.)

Bayless engaged in a heated debate in which he quoted BALCO founder Victor Conte as saying synthetic testosterone use is “rampant” in the majors today. He then asked, “If you are Derek Jeter, would you think about using HGH right now?” Bayless backed off accusing Jeter of any wrongdoing.
“I am not saying he uses a thing,” Bayless said. “I have no idea. But within the confines of his sport, it is fair for all of us, in fact you are remiss, if you don’t at least think about this.”

For this, he has taken a fair amount of criticism.

What was most depressing about Derek Jeter being "accused" by Skip Bayless of using PEDs — and "accused" is a verb that gives Bayless's dipshittery far more credit than it deserves — is not that Bayless did it; this is what Bayless does. It's that someone actually asked Jeter about it. He had to give a legitimate response. And then that response itself becomes news, with the headline "Jeter brushes off PED talk." There is no talk. There is only Bayless.

But let's step back for just a minute and ponder these three sets of numbers, remembering that they came during the time encompassing the subject's 36th through 38th birthdays, and he's a shortstop ... and make the subject not be Derek Jeter, perhaps the most-respected player in baseball:

2010: .270 (batting average)/.340 (on-base percentage)/.370 (slugging percentage)/10 (home runs).
2011: /297/.355/.388/6 (after a first half so bad that there was open speculation about what his future would hold).
2012 (so far):.324/.364/.450/13, plus a league-leading 169 hits.

What would people be saying?

I'm a big Derek Jeter fan. More than anyone else -- and there are certainly other worthy candidates like Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte -- he symbolizes to me the great Yankee era of my adulthood like Ruth, Mantle or DiMaggio did for people before me.

And I don't think he has used performance-enhancing drugs. If we ever find out he did, I'll be disappointed. I'll be unhappy. Maybe I'll even be mad.

But I don't think he has.

But why do I think that way?

For the same reason everyone ripping Bayless does (and also that they don't like Bayless).

Derek Jeter wouldn't do such a thing.

Melky Cabrera? Sure. Bartolo Colon? Ummm...yeah! (Upon learning the news, the great Ken Tremendous, who I believe has thumped on this tub before, wrote on Twitter, "Wait a second...Bartolo Colon was using PEDs?! Who in the world could've possibly imagined such a thing except everyone in the universe?!")

But not Derek Jeter.

Because he's the most-respected player in baseball.

With every fiber of my being, I want Skip Bayless to be wrong, to be proven as the idiot who can do no better than saying stupid things about white Redskins fans supporting a white quarterback over a black one. I think he is.

However, we need to decide ... is everyone who has an unexpectedly good season suspect, or is no one? Because one of these days, someone who "nobody thought" would ever use PEDs is going to get nailed.

Derek Jeter: now and in history

I former co-worker of mine, who relishes a good sports discussion about as much as I do, sent me some messages on Facebook today:

Is Jeter still a good fielder? (Not WAS but IS even at 37)

When I replied that I'm sure he is what he has always been, namely a guy who catches everything he can reach and doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but not great range, he sent me the following:

I just read an article that made this big long argument that he had bad range last year. My reaction was to question why they bothered writing it. He was 36. I can understand arguing about 27-year old Jeter. That's one of the timeless baseball arguments. But at this age, I don't know who you're arguing against. (By the way, given some of the discussions we've had about Jeter over the years, this is about as close to a ringing endorsement of Jeter's defense as it gets. And if he just read that comment, I hope it brought a smile to his face.)

Also read a second article that made the pretty convincing statement: "Jeter=best overall career at shortstop all time"

I asked him to send me the links. This is the FanGraphs one about the fielding. And regarding the point about "who you're arguing against," it's a good point. As this Bleacher Report post shows, the cohort of 37-year-old shortstops is a very small one.

I will readily admit that I'm not really into most advanced stats, especially the defensive ones. I don't have a clue about how most of them are determined, and I have the bias that for at least the first several years after they became prominent, their only purposed seemed to be to say ... Derek Jeter can't field.

Watching him play for his whole career, I would say while his range has never been spectacular, like I said before, he catches what he reaches and doesn't make a lot of errors, which does have value. Maybe he doesn't take away a lot of hits, but he's also not giving teams four outs, either.

This tidbit from FanGraphs, however, really caught my attention.

“To the second base side — the side where more grounders are hit — the average shortstop fielded 65 percent over that area. Interestingly, Ryan and Jeter — the best and worst defensive shortstops in the league — had essentially the same percentage. Ryan was league average, at 65, and Jeter was at 64.
“Why did Jeter finish last at his position? Let’s look to other side of the line and break it down [by segments]. On balls hit to the third base-shortstop hole, MLB shortstops averaged 82 percent on balls hit to that [nearest] 7-foot slice. Ryan was at 86 and Jeter was at 73. You go another 7 feet to the right and the average is 61, with Ryan at 78 and Jeter at 40. Go another 7 feet and the average is 34 with Ryan at 56 and Jeter at 16. Go even deeper in the hole, where the average is just 8 percent, Ryan is at 13 and Jeter is at 0. He can’t make that play at all. Essentially, the whole difference between the best and worst shortstops was on balls hit to their right.”

I would have bet just about anything that statistics which determined Derek Jeter is a poor shortstop would base it on an inability to go to his left, but this says the exact opposite. Is this the reason why people think his range is all to his right?


As for the greatest of all time argument, my buddy couldn't find the original link, but found another article from Rob Neyer basically saying that if you squint hard enough, maybe a person could make the argument for Jeter, but his pick would be Honus Wagner.

But he also points out that using the statistics he used, most of the greatest players of all time were from decades ago, and makes the 1972 Miami Dolphins argument I hate so much, even though he still puts Wagner on top.

Baseball players today are generally a great deal more talented than their ancient forebears. I don't believe that Honus Wagner could win a job in the majors leagues (sic) today. I'm not sure he could play in the Texas League.
But if we head down that rabbit hole, Babe Ruth's not a major leaguer. Ted Williams might not be. And our discussion becomes a lot less interesting, I think, if we're restricted to players from the 1960s or '70s and later.
So Honus Wagner gets to stay. And I will argue that his numbers are so much better than any other shortstop's that he remains atop the class, even if he compiled those numbers roughly a century ago.

Meanwhile, Rick Weiner has the exact opposite historical bias in his Bleacher Report post, so much so that even I, as someone who puts more faith in traditional stats than most, can see where he's wrong.

While some may consider Wagner to be a better offensive player then Jeter, there is no disputing that Jeter's defense is superior to Wagner's—Wagner was an atrocious defensive shortstop. While his .931 fielding percentage through 1911 was considered to be excellent at the time, Wagner committed more than 50 errors in five different seasons, and  49 errors in three more, numbers that certainly don't show that solid defense is being played.

Simply put, strip out the differences for eras, the size and speed of athletes and the way the game is played, and the great ones would have been great within the context of the era no matter what. Honus Wagner would be great today, and Derek Jeter would have been great 80 or 90 years ago.

Who's the greatest? I don't know, but I'll put it this way. If we're picking teams, and I have the fifth pick among the shortstops Neyer says are the five best -- Jeter, Wagner, Cal Ripken, Ozzie Smith or Arky Vaughan -- I'm not going to cry over getting any of them.