WHY WOMEN WILL ALWAYS PICK JETER OVER RUTH

Look, I’m not smarter than anyone else, and in fact, I’m just a fan, but even I know that when you look at a Yankee icon of today and compare him to a Yankee icon of yesteryear, there is bound to be a lot of people that will side with what they actually see compared to what they’ve only read about or saw highlights of...

I was reading through some old polls and pieces about my New York Yankees, just trying to find nuggets here and there and I came across that poll that Quinnipiac University did last year, read HERE, in reference to WHO WAS THE GREATEST YANKEE OF ALL TIME? Enter the old debate of Derek Jeter or Babe Ruth. I still get a kick out of it.  They asked 1528 New Yorkers who was the greatest Yankee player of all time...and Jeter tied Ruth. But the best part was because it was literally driven by the women vote...gotta love it.

Men chose Ruth over Jeter 29-18%. Women chose Jeter over the Babe 30-16%.  The chicks dig their sex symbol Jeter over chubby old-timer Ruth.  Women have really come into play when it comes to baseball these days and that’s where the poll gets really interesting. Sure it's a year old, but I never really examined it until now.  BYB too has a huge group of female readers as well. So many of you have amazing opinions and have a great dialog when it comes to our New York Yankees.  But the conversation is sometimes so different when I chat with men fans than when I chat with female fans.

 

Sometimes, when I talk to the guys, we chat about the "old days" with Ruth and Mickey Mantle and the days when Buck Showalter or Billy Martin were manager...stuff like that.  Yet, the female fan is all about the now! They know the stats cold. They rattle them off and know the lineup and stats of the starters as well as a pitcher's ground ball percentage...etc.  It's pretty awesome!

Look...I love the captain.  I think his leadership and talent put him in a category above many… in the modern era. But, it's my opinion that no one, and I mean no one can accomplish what someone like Babe Ruth accomplished.  Sure, I wrote a piece to make Bleeding Yankee Blue fans think titled WHAT IF DEREK JETER AND BABE RUTH SWITCHED PLACES?, and sure, there were “true” baseball historians, both men and women smarter than me suggesting “Well, Jeter is half black, so he wouldn’t have played then.” OK, no kidding, that wasn’t part of my post! Thank you though...go write your own article. The point was, these 2 players are probably 2 of the most popular of their time. That being said, Ruth was a monster.

Babe Ruth’s career numbers look like this:

2873 H / 714 HR / 2213 RBI / 2174 R / .342 BA / .474 OBP / .690 SLG

And that’s just hitting. Don’t forget, he was a successful pitcher as well. The guy was incredible.  Sure, you could argue that Babe Ruth wasn’t that outstanding pitcher with the Yankees and that’s what the poll is about. OK, I got that, but there’s no question Ruth was truly talented all around sometimes hitting more home runs than an entire ballclub combined..

Jeter is too talented and there is no question that he deserves a ton of recognition, but just compare numbers.  Here’s Jeet’s:

3147 H / 245 HR / 1211 RBI / 1793 R / .314 BA / .383 OBP / .450 SLG

It was a really interesting poll and I remember the conversations swirling when it came out last year, but it's funny, I never realized the female impact until now.  It's really great to see! But I wonder though, looking at that old Quinnipiac poll... would it be a different result if the poll was ask to only men or only women? Sure, it’s my opinion that maybe because of the gender combination, the outcome may have come out heavier on Jeter’s end than I expected…but hey, what the hell do I know…I’m a man!

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