WHY ONE JETER STAT CAN'T BE OVERLOOKED

Steve Politi of the Star-Ledger writes a great piece and you can read the whole thing here:

The Yankees aren’t really going to play hardball with Derek Jeter, are they?

I enjoyed reading it, but there is one stat I noticed in the piece that I loved and it makes my point about leadership and what Jeter's meant to the Yankees over the years and hopefully beyond. Attendance. This part is just brilliant:

Of course, the 36-year-old Jeter isn’t going to command the same money from another team coming off the worst season of his career. But that doesn’t lessen his value to this franchise, and no matter how the Yankees try to spin this, that extends beyond the diamond.

The Yankees are a billion-dollar business and Jeter, more than any single person not named George Steinbrenner, is responsible for getting them there.

This is the overlooked number with Jeter: 1,705,263. That was the Yankees attendance in 1995, the year before Jeter became the everyday shortstop in the Bronx. It was actually below the American League average.

Four championships and 14 years later, when the team played its final season at the old Yankee Stadium, that number had climbed to 4,298,655 — and, as any fan can tell you, the ticket price climbed right along with it.

The team moved to its giant ATM of a ballpark and started the YES Network, becoming the Bronx branch of the U.S. mint along the way. They were worth $185 million in ’95, and according to Forbes, that value is now $1.5 billion. Plenty of players had a hand in that, but Jeter tops the list.

Bravo Steve, Bravo.