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To clarify some of this Jeter stuff for people who've not followed my work (which is most people), I grew up an NYY fan and would sit in the stands watching Bobby Meacham heave routine throws past Don Mattingly and pray for a shortstop.
I would think, "Can it really be possible this team hasn't had a good all-round performance from a SS since Phil Rizzuto's MVP in 1950?" And it was basically true. Jeter came along at about the same time I became a pro and shelved my fandom, but I was still gratified.
Soon after, I got to write almost daily about NYY for http://MLB.com and then YES. I did this for years and in that capacity saw just about every game Jeter played and from time to time interacted with him (I was never a beat writer, but I had press access). He was great
Maybe because fans had been as desperate for a SS as I had been, they started treating him as the messiah. I'm iconoclastic by nature. I reject that. He still should have won a couple of MVPs-you can believe both in his greatness and his fallibility.
There's a reason that "past a diving Jeter" became a meme before there were really memes--you heard this at least once a game. He was great to his right (the jump-throws!). He was amazing going back on popups. I don't think he made a play behind the 2B bag in his entire career.
I got used to watching the opposing SS and noticing him making plays Jeter didn't. A couple of times a game I would say, "Jeter wouldn't have gotten that." Sometimes (like if a pop fly dropped) I would say, "Jeter WOULD have gotten that." But there was more of the former.
It was/is easy to overreact to that, because what's a missed grounder up the middle? A single. It scores, what, 1/3 of the time, and even if it does, later Jeter hits a double or a HR and that's a net positive. But that was part of evaluating him honestly.
Talking about A-Rod brings in a lot of extra baggage, but Jeter wouldn't move for him when he was clearly the better SS (I don't think that condition obtained for very long). That was as much a negative act of ego as when Joe DiMaggio refused to yield CF to Mickey Mantle.
None of this takes away from Jeter being a great player, the greatest SS in NYY history, 3000 hits, all the WS rings... It just means he wasn't Cal Ripken and Ozzie Smith combined. That's ALL. So when someone says he should, like the cheese, stand ALONE in Cooperstown, wow.
That writer has failed his audience in a huge way, because he was surrendered his objectivity and instead is pandering to Jeter's many fans and/or promoting something mythical. That's not journalism, it's not history, and it's not even good commentary.
What's neat for me here tonight is that to the extent I'm getting negative feedback here, it is the EXACT same feedback I got circa 2000. Either you're with Jeter or against him. I'm really sorry to offend your sacred cow. I liked him too. I just don't worship him, and won't.
