''There's a time when the respect for the game takes over and you can't do what you once did,'' Mets manager Terry Collins said. ''The game deserves all you can give it, and if it's not there you got to step aside. Some guys have a tough time doing it but the really great ones don't.''
This statement by Mr. Collins is the truth but, that will not matter at all to the media...those same guys that hyped him and made him into a player no one dares to critique, without being called a Jeter hater. Mr Collins has been around baseball for years and has seen many of the recently trashed greats of the last half Century.
I started to notice a change in Jeters play in 2009 and it has progressively gotten a bit weaker. Not bad by any means, just not real good!
The media and announcers for YES and some of the other sports stations across this country have been telling the fans how great Jeter and MO are that they now believe Both rate as being greater than the real greats of Yankee History. Maybe you have heard of them, then again, as ones perspective of history begins with our first two or so years of life, it is no surprise!
They were the for-runners of the players we see today, they set the standards and the NOW players try and break those standards, setting new ones for someone else to break, sometime in the future.
There are certain players that transcend the era they played in! To say that Jeter is one of the Greatest Yankees of all time, would mean he could have been a great player back in the days of the 1940's and 50's. That would be up for debate for sure.
Let me just say, as one that saw most every Yankee player playing in the 1940s and 50s. It is easy for me to say; not only would Jeter not be great as he has been for the last 20 years. But, conversely a few of the stars back then wouldn't make it in today's baseball...although I could see many more of them being stars in today's game than the other way around
Thus, try as one may, the players of each 30 or 50 years should never be compared. It is way to subjective with most every player except maybe; NO, I will not pass judgement on the players of either era.
But the respect for those that came before, and the game itself is paramount...one must give respect to receive respect!