Re: Derek Jeter
people remember that chipper jones had a 'retirement tour', right? he got gifts from all around the league. the media coverage may not have been as drastic as jeter's, but NYC is a huge market, atlanta not so much.
jeter will go down as a great player, and one of the greatest offensive shortstops of all time (behind wagner, a-rod, for a few examples). everyone knows his defense aint the greatest. and he played during a peak time in the yankees' organization, which certainly elevates things. he essentially played an extra season's worth of games in the playoffs, and had (slightly) better numbers in october compared to his career line.
yankees are milking this tour for all its worth, for a few reasons the way i see it: 1)the face of the organization (and baseball) for the last 20 years is retiring, kind of a big deal 2)its no secret that they've struggled a bit to sell tickets to games the last few years, this helps put butts in the seats. 3)it helps deflect focus off the fact that they were a mediocre team this year
and just for fun, you can argue that jeter probably should have won the MVP in '99 over i-rod (although pedro martinez had a great argument as well), but that was the peak of the steroids/HR era and pudge's power numbers were 'sexier' than jeter's, but not by much. DJ: 158games, 219hits, 24HRs, 102RBI, .349/.438/.552. Pudge: 144G, 199H, 35HRs, 113RBI, .332/.356/.558.
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