If Jeter ever gets tired of dating actresses and models, there's always that large contingent of middle-aged men with unabashed man crushes. I imagine that "Terence Jeter" is scrawled throughout the margins of Mr. Moore's notebooks.

Moore obviously isn't a follower of the First Commandment.

If changing teams diminishes a player's status, then cross Ruth, Aaron, and Mays off the list.

And explain to me why you disrespect the great Mariano, who's been around just as long as Jeter.

Then Pujols’ light dimmed after he bolted from the adoring arms of Cardinals fans to snatch the free-agent cash ($240 million, give or take a few million) of the Los Angeles Angels.

The way Jeter selflessly plays for the league minimum really sets him apart from these other guys.

Moore is probably right though. I suspect that Jeter is in fact the Most Revered Player in the game both by those in the game and by fans. His popularity probably means there is more backlash against him than most but I can't think of anyone as generally respected as Jeter. Maybe Rivera but other than that I can't think of anyone. According to BBRef the 15 longest tenured players still active in 2012 were;

Vizquel
Thome
Oliver
A-Rod
Rivera
Isringhausen
Hawkins
Pettitte
Jeter
Giambi
Wright
Cairo
Ibanez
Abreu
Rolen

I think the only ones who could probably give Jeter a run for his money within the game are Thome and Rivera. I think Thome falls behind if you consider the fans opinion, he's well respected but not as well known as Jeter. Jeter is someone a non-baseball fan may know, Thome is not (and I love Thome and I'm not a big Jeter fan).

Still I do agree with Not A Number that this reads like something a 15 year old girl would write about her crush.

Giambi
Wright
Cairo


I didn't immediately know who "Wright" was, but (correctly) guessed Jamey. Hard to believe he's stuck around so long. One interesting thing I noticed about Jamey Wright:

Year A - 4.87 ERA, 120 ERA+
Year B - 3.16 ERA, 120 ERA+

That's the difference between 1999 Coors Field and 2011 Safeco Field.

Forget it. You wouldn't understand anyway.
You wouldn't understand anyway.
You wouldn't understand anyway.
You wouldn't understand anyway.
You wouldn't understand anyway.
You wouldn't understand anyway.

I can't figure out why Chipper Jones isn't on that list in post 4.

Good question, since Vizquel is on the list and also retired. But I do think the author is restricting his comparison to active players.

For Thome, and Vizquel last year, I think they would fall below Jeter for 2 reasons: Lots of team switching in their later years, and moving into backup roles while Jeter is still out there every day, in his original position.

I can't figure out why Chipper Jones isn't on that list in post 4.

I don't know either. When I did the PI search I specified "Active Players" so I assume that BBRef's engine knows he's retired but his page doesn't list a "Final Game". For what it's worth Jones would slot in between Oliver and A-Rod.

What about Ichiro?

Hey Terence, you might want to wipe your chin...

Whenever Derek Jeter came to bat
We people in the nosebleeds cheered for him:
He was a champion from spikes to hat,
Clean-sampled, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed
And he would always mumble when he talked
But still he fluttered pulses when he gave
Gift Baskets and they Twittered when he stalked.

And he was clutch - yes go and count da ringzz -
And admirably schooled in fundamentals
In fine we thought that he was everything
To make Terence Moore and Chass get sentimental.

So on we watched beneath that bank of lights
And went down in defeat and cursed the PEDs,
And Derek Jeter that calm summer night
Went home and put a starlet in his bed.

I'm really confused about the rationale here. Since Pujols is disqualified because he changed teams, then as mentioned Ruth and others should be as well. If Chipper is disqualified because he is now retired, then Williams should be disqualified as he retired a few years before Musial. Mantle didn't come around until 11 years after Musial started, so why can't Mauer be a Jeter?

Year A - 4.87 ERA, 120 ERA+
Year B - 3.16 ERA, 120 ERA+

That's the difference between 1999 Coors Field and 2011 Safeco Field.

wow

BBref has 17 active players with 50+ career WAR. 13 of them are currently active, though some of the others may not be done (Abreu, A Jones, Thome, Rolen).

Of those 13, 6 are Yankees: A-Rod, Jeter, Pettitte, Sabathia, Mo, Ichiro. Only other team with more than 1 living legend is the Phillies (Utley, Halladay).

is this a ####### joke?

is this a ####### joke?

It sure reads like it, but I think the guy is trying to be serious.

P.S. When it comes to being revered unanimously, meaning 100% with no qualifications, no matter how petty**, the only player who meets that standard would be Stan Musial.

**Murray Chass is not a human being, and his unsubstantiated ruminations about Musial's racism don't count.

P.S. When it comes to being revered unanimously, meaning 100% with no qualifications, no matter how petty**, the only player who meets that standard would be Musial.

I can't imagine anyone having a problem with Gehrig.

It is interesting how quickly Ripken's star has faded. In his last years, he was the Messiah to restore American work ethic, family values, and industrial might, all in one.

Decades later, Cal Ripken Jr. had Tony Gwynn.

I don't think Gwynn was revered quite the way Ripken was. Gwynn was revered for being a great hitter, but Ripken was revered for being a great player overall (even though Gwynn arguably had a better game overall), and for being a leader, and ironhorse, and being emblematic for what was great about baseball. It was Ripken who "saved baseball" with his consecutive games record, not Gwynn with his pursuit of .400. It was Ripken who did national ads, not Gwynn. It also helped Ripken played for an East Coast team, while Gwynn played for a West Coast team that hasn't had great fan support throughout the years.

I think Ripken was probably the most universally beloved player in the 80s. Ozzie, Mattingly and Gwynn (and maybe Kirby Puckett - oops!) were probably a tier below.

the Phillies (Utley

That's a heck of a lot of WAR for a guy who hasn't been able to stay in the lineup. B-Ref lists only thirty players with more WAR in their first ten seasons than Utley. Wow.

Incidentally, as I've sometimes noted, Joe Garagiola did not like Musial (though I doubt he'd speak ill of him at this point). They had a falling-out over a business venture, and Garagiola blamed Musial somewhat bitterly. It's hard to be 100% loved in this world.

Charlie Gehringer is a HOFer nobody had anything bad to say about, but OTOH nobody had much to say about him at all. He and his wife were daily mass-goers for the 44 years (death do us part) that they were married. Musial and his wife were married over 60 years; I don't know that ultralong marriages necessarily prove good character (and I fall way short on that scale myself), but they might tend to indicate that someone is good at getting along with people.

Gehringer, like George Brett later on (who has now been married 20 years, wow again) did not marry till he retired from baseball. (In fact Gehringer did not marry till his mother died; he lived with her till then, when he was in his 40s.) I reckon Jeter will be in that category too, at this point.

That's a heck of a lot of WAR for a guy who hasn't been able to stay in the lineup. B-Ref lists only thirty players with more WAR in their first ten seasons than Utley. Wow.

Most of that (38.6) was from 2005-2009, when Utley was able to stay in the lineup for an average of 151 games per year. That 5 year peak is better than all but a few HOF second basemen - gold glove quality defense, 100+ runs and rbi, 30 homers, .300 batting average, .900+ OPS, and 77/87 in stealing bases. He didn't just do everything, he excelled at everything.

I can't imagine anyone having a problem with Gehrig.

Couldn't stay in the lineup.

Still I do agree with Not A Number that this reads like something a 15 year old girl would write about her crush.

I don't know any 15 year old girls who wouldn't be mortified to have written such a paean. 12 years old sounds about right.

Who had a problem with Mays while he was playing?

Who had a problem with Mays while he was playing?

Curt Flood, right?

I can't imagine anyone having a problem with Gehrig.

ummm..Lou was a bit of a red-ass (more than a bit, actually)

Steroid injections will do that.

the 15 longest tenured players still active in 2012 were;

Vizquel
Thome
Oliver
A-Rod
Rivera
Isringhausen
Hawkins
Pettitte
Jeter
Giambi
Wright
Cairo
Ibanez
Abreu
Rolen

Most seasons played by players active in 2012:
25 Jamie Moyer
24 Omar Vizquel
22 Jim Thome
19 Darren Oliver
19 Alex Rodriguez
19 Chipper Jones
18 Miguel Batista
18 LaTroy Hawkins
18 Johnny Damon
18 Jason Giambi
18 Derek Jeter
18 Mariano Rivera

I'm having a really hard time squaring my image of Ruth in the 1920s with the way in which "revered" is being used in this article.

I have never heard an even mildly negative thing about Thome. Not that that is really on point, but still.

How many times has Jeter oscillated between underrated and overrated? *that* has to be a record.

I have never heard an even mildly negative thing about Thome. Not that that is really on point, but still.

From a character point of view, or a value point of view?

Where to start? Well, how about, "Now that Stan Musial has passed away, the slot for 'most revered player in baseball' is up for grabs. Each city and team will have a candidate, but there is real doubt as to whether any of those candidates is truly revered everywhere." Here in STL, Jeter is not revered at all; just another overpaid, egocentric (STL fans don't think that he would be playing shortstop unless he was insisting on it) Yankee. In STL, the most revered player would be home town boy Yadier Molina. The STL MRP who is not a Cardinal would probably be Ichiro or the leftover Pujols fans, of whom there are many. But fans of other teams should post up their own teams' MRP, instead of reading my guesses about their team and city.

Jolly's comment (#17), BTW, refers to Chass completely misunderstanding the story of Curt Flood and Musial and Biggie's restaurant. It is true that, in the early 1960s, Curt Flood and a date were turned away from the place. It is also true, and well documented in Flood's first autobio, The Way It Is, that this policy had been imposed by Biggie the restauranteur instead of Musial, the name behind the fame, but not actually involved in the daily business. And it is true that Curt had a talk with Stan the next day, and Stan got right on the phone to Biggie. By the day after that, Musial and Biggie's was no longer Jim Crow. Flood PRAISES Musial for this, as he praises Musial for abandoning the beach cabana he had in spring training the year the Gussie Busch got a friend to buy a hotel in Florida so that the black players could stay in the same hotel as the whites. Musial and Ken Boyer, who were able to afford cabanas, both abandoned them and stayed at the hotel with their black teammates. Flood has nothing bad to say about either one of them. Nor do Bob Gibson and Bill White, both of whom praise Musial and Boyer for this. As for Musial racism, when he died, the local paper, the Post-Dispatch, ran a photo of one of Musial's high school teams. It's integrated. There is only one black guy, but there is one. He's Buddy Griffey, the father of Ken Griffey Sr. and grandfather of you know who. Musial was used to integrated ball before he went professional. He was no form of racist.

The same problem exists in GregD's comment (#24). In The Way It Is, Flood compares Musial and Mays, saying that what they had in common as people was that they generalized their own good fortune in baseball, and looked at the game through the rose-colored glasses of their own successes. That excerpt is the source of the rumor that Flood had problems with Musial and Mays. But Flood makes no criticism of the two men, whom he goes out of his way to say that he liked and admired; he's just trying to write down what it was like to play with Stan Musial - what kind of personality he had. Flood and Bob Gibson could think that some of Stan's public speeches were short of criticism of MLB, and unintentionally hilarious, but neither man has anything bad to say about either Musial or Mays.

People are misreading Flood's book. Whether this is deliberate or not from Murray Chass, I don't know. But both accusations against Flood (and/or Musial and Mays) are based on passages in this book, and if you actually read the book with the context surrounding those passages, you will certainly note that there is no hostility towards Musial or Mays. You want The Way It Is, not the later Curt Flood autobio. TWII is my favorite of all baseball books, because it successfully places baseball into the context of the 1950s and 1960s, and is really the first book to do that within the framework of a player autobio. It's sort of like Ball Four, only written for adults rather than teenagers. Read it for yourself; then laugh at Chass.

- Brock Hanke

grandfather of you know who

Craig Griffey?

How many times has Jeter oscillated between underrated and overrated? *that* has to be a record.

Depending on your opinion of his defense (GuyM makes a good case that Jeter is pretty negative on defense and this is backed up by WOWY http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/best_worst_wowy_since_1993_through_age_34/), Jeter is a 60+ WAR guy and counting. So even the the most pessimistic viewpoint has him as a HOFer. I don't think he's ever really been underrated.

Brock,

Thanks for elaborating on the comment I made about Chass and Musial. I would have done so myself, except that Chass is by now such an isolated totem of self-parody that I can't summon the energy to refute his gibberish.

And Miserlou, you're right, I should have made Gehrig the other example of unanimous reverence along with Musial. My subconscious was probably paying too much attention to my dispeptic opinion of The Pride of the Yankees and not enough to the real life Gehrig.

I can't imagine anyone having a problem with Gehrig.

Except for those years when he wasn't talking to Babe because of an off hand comment about Mama Gehrig.

And Miserlou, you're right, I should have made Gehrig the other example of unanimous reverence along with Musial.

Ernie Banks* and Brooks Robinson also fit the mold, if more provincial and less well known.

* Though Durocher had a problem with Banks, but that speaks more about Leo than Ernie.

The STL MRP who is not a Cardinal would probably be Ichiro or the leftover Pujols fans, of whom there are many. But fans of other teams should post up their own teams' MRP, instead of reading my guesses about their team and city.

In Minnesota, the MRP should be Joe Mauer, but instead it might actually be teh Jeter because a) the locals perceive Mauer as single-hitting wimp and b) Gardy's #### doesn't work in the playoffs against teh Jeter.

Re: the Yankees, may as well talk baseball since there's a game on.

Since when does Dan Johnson play 3B? I always figured him as a big lumbering Jack Cust/Adam Dunn type player. He just came up for the Yankees and I thought, surely that's not THE Dan Johnson. But it was...he doesn't seem like a big lumbering guy at all.

I think Tampa first tried him a bit at 3B because they like guys to play all over. Before that he was a 1B even in college.

People are misreading Flood's book. Whether this is deliberate or not from Murray Chass, I don't know. But both accusations against Flood (and/or Musial and Mays) are based on passages in this book, and if you actually read the book with the context surrounding those passages, you will certainly note that there is no hostility towards Musial or Mays. You want The Way It Is, not the later Curt Flood autobio. TWII is my favorite of all baseball books, because it successfully places baseball into the context of the 1950s and 1960s, and is really the first book to do that within the framework of a player autobio. It's sort of like Ball Four, only written for adults rather than teenagers. Read it for yourself; then laugh at Chass.

Thanks!

From a character point of view, or a value point of view?

Character. Which is why it was not super on point.

I can't imagine anyone having a problem with Gehrig.

You must be a stuck up Ivy Leaguer too, then!

Of those 13, 6 are Yankees: A-Rod, Jeter, Pettitte, Sabathia, Mo, Ichiro. Only other team with more than 1 living legend is the Phillies (Utley, Halladay).

I was about to say that can't be right, the Cardinals have to have two, but only Beltran breaks 50... Holliday at 35, Carpenter at 32 and Yadier at 19.(even if they improve war's defensive component and remove the "inferior" league penalty, there is no way that Yadier makes it to 50 :) )


The problem I have with Jeter's image, is that it's so obviously cultivated that I just can't believe it. He reminds me of politicians too much because of that, I think he has more in common with Bill Clinton than he would with Stan Musial.

Can anybody ever remember a time when Jeter was seriously up for grabs though? Like, was there a time when Jeter's loyalty was really questioned by another team throwing a huge amount of money his way?

I think Jeter has stayed a Yankee for his entire career in no small part because the Yankees value him more than any other club would, and part of that is that his value to the Yankees may be higher than it would be to any other team. Does he really get loyalty points for that?

It's sort of like Ball Four, only written for adults rather than teenagers.

If you're a baseball fan (or a sports fan really), you're a teenager at most. Especially when it comes to discussing things like being revered. If insist on the mythological and folklore approach to appreciating baseball, you're a kid. Not that there's anything uniformly wrong with that.

Too, you have to distinguish between really being admired and revered on a truly Augustan scale, and simple vanilla liking someone because they were great players and are good persons. Williams was Prometheus Unbound (talking about how he was view beginning after his retirement), bringer of light. Stan was Andy Taylor, Mayberry RFD.

I think Jeter has stayed a Yankee for his entire career in no small part because the Yankees value him more than any other club would, and part of that is that his value to the Yankees may be higher than it would be to any other team. Does he really get loyalty points for that?

As Dwight Shrute says, I feel like part of what I'm getting paid for here is my loyalty. But, if there were somewhere else that valued that loyalty more highly, I'm going wherever they value loyalty the most.

I can't imagine anyone having a problem with Gehrig.

Wasn't he rather notorious for being a cheapskate?

Gehrig's disgraceful example encouraged children to larrup.