Yankee Fans: Morons

Four players have monuments. Jeter will make it five.

 

He won't be and you won't have to wait that long. 5 years after his induction he'll be the 1st name on the second tier. And unless the Yankees go into a '80-'94 death spiral, he'll remain that way.

Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio are mythic icons. IMHO Mantle has lost a bit of luster but he's deserving a place on the Mt.Rushmore of Yankee-Land. They'relarger than life, and were so in their playing days. Jeter was never considered in the same manner.

 

I guess my point was that, as a current player, Jeter doesn't get the benefit of mythology yet. It will probably come because future fans who never saw him play will begin to view him and his career accomplishments in an iconic haze, just as people today look at Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle, even though they never saw those guys play. It also helps Jeter that he played shortstop and put up numbers that very few at his position have while playing on all those title teams. I'm say necessarily saying that he's their equal, just that he very may well be viewed that way over time.

 

Should he be higher than Kevin Maas?

 

He shouldn't be. He was not on their level.

 

Bye-Bye Balboni and Bam-Bam Muelens want their due

 

As a player? Or as a mythology?

 

As a player. Amazingly enough, he has gotten more of a boost from his mythology among the Yankee faithful than all of those guys.

 

I agree with this, but even with his (usually) horrid defense at short, he's still an easy, no-doubt Hall of Fame guy, and by all accounts has all of the intangibles (work ethic, leadership) that lead to idolization. I think it's more likely that the standards get loosened a bit to include him in a group with that first four.

 

Work ethic? Fine. Leadership? Spare me. Great leaders don't pick and choose which teammates they will support and which they will distance themselves from. (He backed Giambi after the whole steroid thing came out, but never stood up for Rodriguez when the fans were bashing him).

 

I think they'd both be somewhere between 10 and 15. Just saying they need to be in the discussion.
FWIW, the way I see it, it breaks down into a few clear categories:

1) Mount Rushmore -- Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mantle
These guys were larger than life, larger than baseball. Not just the greatest Yankees of all-time, but maybe four of the 10 best PLAYERS of all-time. You hear their names and you automatically think of sepia-toned films of them swinging a bat in pinstripes. They're as likely to be mentioned in a historical documentary about their respective decades as a baseball film. Together, they form a chain of success that spans almost a half-century.

2) Legends -- Berra, Jeter, Ford, Rivera.
These are the players synonymous with Yankee success. All four were integral parts of multiple championship teams who spent their entire hall of fame careers (or in Berra's case all but one season) with the Yankees. That's an important distinction from the next group. These guys are baseball icons who continued the Yankee tradition, yet never became American cultural icons the way those first four players did. Berra comes very, very close to that, but he's still more of a sports figure than a general household name.

3) Memory Makers -- Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Roger Maris.
Guys who had their best moments -- history-making moments, even -- in a Yankee uniform, but their time with the team was brief. Not quite good enough or long-lived enough to elevate themselves to the Legends group.

4) Fan Favorites -- Mattingly, Paul O'Neill, Bernie Williams, Ron Guidry, Phil Rizzuto, Andy Pettitte.
Not sure-fire hall of famers like the Legends, not authors of a singular moment like the Memory Makers, these guys are more blue-collar heroes. They hold a special place in the hearts of Yankee fans from a particular point in time. Each is on the top-5 list of best Yankees of a particular decade, but are dwarfed in stature by some of the immortals above them on an all-time scale.

Missing the cut
Roger Clemens, A-Rod: Despite winning a World Series or two with the Yanks, they became superstars in places other than New York. You could even say their best years were in places other than New York. Both were also overshadowed by their peers (Clemens by the perfect games of David Wells and David Cone, A-Rod constantly living in Jeter's shadow).
In many ways, they're also the symbol of what people hate about the Yankees. They signed as free agents well into great careers, seemingly to chase money and a ring. The ties to PED drop them another peg.
Bill Dickey, Lefty Grove, Tony Lazzeri: Too old school to be truly remembered by anything other than hardcore baseball fans. Great players, obviously, but not easily identifiable as Yankees the way the first three groups are.
Ricky Henderson, Wade Boggs: Both contributed to their respective Yankees teams, but had their most significant moments elsewhere.
Jorge Posada: The last member of the "Core Four" deserves a mention, and might even make the HOF someday. But his achievements and contributions pale in comparison next to Jeter, Rivera and even Pettitte.

 

Excellent job.

I'd put Nettles into fan favorites, a HR crown, 2 rings and some post season defensive gems, a hard, tough player. Red Ruffing and Earl Combs deserve mention in the old school greats, they are Hall of Famers at the birth of the modern age, which began before ESPN.

and its Left Gomez not Lefty Grove(a Red Sox)

otherwise, a thread closing, HOF post