I don't hate Derek Jeter, I don't like Derek Jeter, but I don't hate. I hate idol worship when a player doesn't deserve it. I hate nostalgia when a player hasn't even left the game. A patch on the uniform when the player is neither dead, nor retired.
He's great, we know. But was he? Was he really?
Top 5 defensive short stops ever, he's not on the list. Top 5 offensive short stops ever, guess what? Not on the list. Never won an MVP, which means in any single season the writers, who have loved him so much this year, never thought he was the best player in the American League.
Mr. Clutch? His regular season numbers and his post season numbers are almost identical. To counter, David Ortiz owns the post season, and dominates the World Series. I want someone to make the case for Derek Jeter being better than Ortiz in the post season.
He's played 19 seasons with one franchise and won 5 titles. Great. Honestly, let's put some of this in context. The first four occurred when the Yankees were an absolute powerhouse and Jeter was just a budding star. Like Keith Olberman highlighted, one in his last 14 years demonstrates something different than what we seem to have attributed to him. We have numbers that demonstrate a relatively above average existence. He never won a batting title, never led the league in steals, won a bunch of gold gloves he never deserved, and was still an all-star 14 times.
Mariano Rivera was the best at what he did, the absolute best. He got a farewell tour, repeating the process a year later for Derek Jeter is a travesty. It's disingenuous to pretend that Jeter deserved it as much as Rivera.
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