With a single to right field in the third inning of the Yankees 10-4 loss to the Orioles Friday, Derek Jeter collected his 2,722nd career hit and passed Lou Gehrig to become the New York Yankees all-time hit leader.  This is quite an accomplishment when you consider all the great players that have donned the pinstripes: Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra.  They all had fewer hits than Derek Jeter. 

 This is all happening amidst, quite possibly, Jeter’s finest season.  As of 9/11/2009 Jeter is hitting .331 with 97 runs and 25 stolen bases.

As evidenced, here, here and here, Jeter was supposed to be in the decline of his career after he posted his worst statistical season in 2008.  However, what wasn’t widely publicized was the fact that Jeter battled through nagging injuries to his quadriceps and hand for most of the season. Despite all the injuries, he still managed to hit .300 with 88 runs and 69 RBI’s. Only Christian Guzman and Hanley Ramirez had higher batting averages as a shortstop.  

In a Sports Illustrated poll voted on by MLB players in 2008, Derek Jeter was named the most overrated player in the game.  Any intelligent baseball fan will tell you this is completely absurd. In fact, he might be underrated.


Derek Jeter has been the top shortstop or one of the top shortstops in the league for 13 years now.  Some shortstops of his time, such as Nomar Garciaparra, have become irrelevant, while others, such as Miguel Tejada, needed steroids to be successful.  Jeter, meanwhile, has done everything the right way and has surpassed his peers. 

Without sounding too cliché, he represents all that is right with game. He’s a hard worker, who always says and does the right thing.  He’ll never refer to himself in the third person, you won’t see him sitting in central park with his shirt off and he’ll never be fined for saying something controversial on his twitter status. 

He will eventually become the first Yankee to collect 3,000 hits and possibly 4,000 hits. He has four World Series titles and counting and has an All-Star and World Series MVP.  The only thing missing from his resume is a regular season MVP award. Twice he was robbed of this award.  In 1998, he finished third in the MVP voting behind two guys that were likely on the juice, Juan Gonzalez and Nomar Garciaparra.  In 2006, he finished a close second to Justin Morneau, who wasn’t even the most valuable player on his own team that season.  

He has been remarkably consistent through his hall-of-fame career. He’s collected at least 179 hits in every year since 1996.  He’s eclipsed .300 all but one season and has scored 100 runs 11 times.  There’s a good chance he could finish his career with 300 HR’s and 300 SB’s, an achievement that has only been accomplished by six people (Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Andre Dawson, Bobby Bonds, Reggie Sanders, Steve Finley).

In fact, one can argue he is the greatest shortstop who ever lived.  He already has more hits than any other shortstop in history and his numbers and accomplishments are right there with the likes of Honus Wagner, Cal Ripken Jr. and Ernie Banks.  How can one of the greatest shortstops who ever lived be overrated?

In the book, The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, Buster Olney writes about a former area scout for the Houston Astros, named Hal Newhouser, who insisted the Astros take Jeter with the first overall pick in the 1992 draft.  When the Astros passed on Jeter and took Phil Nevin instead, he decided to call it quits saying “If I can’t convince them to take Jeter, I can’t convince them to take anyone.”

One day I hopefully will have children and grandchildren and, just like my father would tell me tales about Mickey Mantle, his favorite boyhood player, I’ll be telling my kids about Derek Jeter. Years from now, when Jeter’s #2 is in monument park and his bust is hanging in Cooperstown, I’ll tell them about his “Jeterian” swing, his face-first plant into the stands against the Red Sox and his patented jump throw.  I’ll tell them about the flip play, the Jeffrey Maier play and why he was called Mr. November.  Most importantly, I’ll tell them how privileged I was to be able to watch him day-in and day-out throughout one of the greatest eras in Yankee history.