More Impressive: 600 HR or 3000 hits

yeah, those are well-made points. jeter's 3,000 chase drew more attenton than a-rod's 600 chase, too. the juicing stuff may have been a factor but i think it's more that '600' is a 'yweener number in home-run circles. more attention has historically been made to 500.

plus, though it pains yankee hatahs to admit, jeter is about 1,000 times more famous and recogmizable to the average joe than thome. i believe thome is a first-ballot hof'er without a doubt, but in terms of fame and acknowledgement as a baseball player he wins in a slam-dunk over thome, a one-dimensional player who has never been considered 'dominant' in any way. no speed, no defense, no intangibles, all that jazz.

much like mickey mantle's 500 chase getting more coverage, no doubt, than harmon killebrew's. thome + killebrew in almost a scary way -- awesome home run hitters recognized as such, but never considered among the greatest overall players of their time. both incredibly respected gentlemen who earned their place in history, despite their limitations as ballplayers.

 

For aggregate comparisons, Aaron had about 1,700 more At bats than Mays, 2,500 more than Bonds, 4,000 more than Ruth, 1,400 more than Musial

 

I know but that opens a whole new can of worms. How far down the list do you go in saying he would have done this if he had that many AB's? What about a guy who had 5,000 less AB's because of injuries?

Anyways, Mays wouldn't have reached Aaron's numbers if he kept playing to match the AB's. He lost all power by then end and couldn't hit for average either.

One other minor note, plate appearances is what you want to look at, not at-bats.

 

thank you for bringing this kid to my attention. i had absolutely no knowledge of him before this. while it's certainly awfully early to project his career numbers, he's certainly off to a start worth paying attention to!

 

The Mays-Aaron argument almost seems similar to the Jeter-Thome one here. New York vs. midwest/south. I'm not going to take anything away from anyone but there is a difference for those playing in New York — always has been. What if Aaron had played in NYC and Mays played in Milwaukee and Atlanta? What if Thome hit 600 HRs for the Yankees and Jeter bounced around and got his 3,000 hits playing for five different teams?

 

there is no 'what if?' about that scenario. the more interesting one has jeter having the same career, including world series rings, and thome having the same career, only ending with the yanks for no. 600.

and you know what, fe same careans? if jeter has the identical career with the twins or brewers, i'd argue he's being feted close to how he is now. obviously, it woul be a bit more intense than his yankees lore, but i'm not so sure... listen, what non-n.y. baseball teams have had the success jeter's yanks have had?

nobody. ripken is probably the one-team superstar in a small market best to compare to jeter's body of work. and i don't think anyone cried or cries now that ripken didn't get enough attention. i don't care what city it is, guys with team and personal success like jeter's are celebrated no matter where they play.

playing in smaller markets with a good amount of winning and personal success didn't exactly hurt favre or elway's notoriety.

 

Football is apples and oranges. Football teams have a different kind of national appeal than baseball. The Packers getting to the Super Bowl are as good for ratings as the Giants getting there.

Where I'll agree with you, Shockey, is on the winning. There's no question that what Jeter's teams have done during his tenure make him a much more significant figure than Thome. But the New York thing cannot be ignored. The stage is bigger there for baseball. I know it was a different era, but did Robin Yount get the kind of build-up Jeter got. He played for one team, was a two-time MVP (at two different positions) and was fairly young for a 3,000-hit guy. But he played in Milwaukee.

If Jeter played for the Brewers there's no way his 3,000th hit would have been celebrated like Jeter's. Was Molitor's? Winfield's? Biggio's?

(And I'll admit some bias here: I was in college when Yount hit No. 3,000 and devastated when Stefan Edberg (!) was on the cover of SI, and all Yount got was a picture in the front of the mag. He was the first to reach 3,000 in seven years, too.)

I think where people have a problem and draw the comparison to Thome's 600th homer was that there was so much build-up to Jeter's 3,000th, as if it was an MLB record. It was a great milestone, one to be celebrated, but so was Thome's. The coverage before, during and after, were not even close.

And as for 500 being more significant than 600, only seven other players have reached 600. That's, as Thome said over and over "pretty cool." And he's only one of only five (we hope) in the club who hasn't been tainted by steroids.

 

You mentioned him but not enough. Biggio is a good example. His was watched and mentioned but it wasn't celebrated, it didn't get an instant HBO special and it wasn't major news that newspapers all across the country ran stories on nor did ESPN spend hours on end talking about it during its shows.

There is also Wade Boggs. Maybe I misremember but for someone who played in Boston and New York and won a World Series he wasn't celebrated nearly as much. Why? Because he was in Tampa when he got hit 3,000.

 

my argument is that had jeter done this as a lifetime yankee but had never won any world series and/or had so many memorable postseason numbers, his 'star' wouldn't shine so brightly nor his every achievement be fussed over. he's the face of THE dominant baseball team of his generation. i don't care who the player is or in what city they play. any such player in the future will receive the same treatment.

all '3,000th hits' are not created equal. i respect the hell out of the biggios and younts and molitors, but none of them comes even close to jeter's status as a national sports hero. the yanks have always had a national fan base, while the fandom in houston and milwaukee is much more provincial and limited. i'm not judging their respective talents; just understanding and explaining to yankee hatahs why the coverage is 'over-the-top.'

and yes, some of it has to do with geography; why the san antonio spurs have been practically anononymous compared to the lakers. and the espns of the world are in the sports business -- there is way more interest in the yankees nationally than on pretty much any other team in sports.

but the winning is primarily why that is. again, if jeter played for the 'n.y. brewers' and not won four world series and been in the playoff every year but one, derek jeter would not be 'rammed down the throats' of the rest of america.

 

That is true, he is just aging very quickly...hasn't played a full season since 2007. I actually like A-Rod to some extent and would like to see him get 700 and maybe challenge Bonds just to watch the media reaction. Who would they hate more?

I just get the feeling he is approaching the wall.

 

He may not get 20-25 a year for the next three years due to injury but he is still hitting very well. Not as well as he used to but his OPS is still amongst the best at 3B and he hit 30 last year. If he is only 10-15 HR's away and doing well on a per game basis why wouldn't he stick around to get to 700? He'll be paid handsomely to do so.

That's the thing with him for me, even if he only gets 15 a year for the next three years (unlikely IMO) he will need just 10-15 more and be paid $20 million to go after it. I say $20 million because that would be his base salary but he get $30 for hitting different HR milestones that happen to be the numbers of the people still in front of him. I don't see why he would work that into the contract if he wasn't planning on holding on to get 700 and pursue the record. Basically, I don't see him retiring because he is so injured he can only play 80-100 games a year.