When the Baseball Hall of Fame announces new members on January 21st, 2020, 3 Yankees Ex-Captains may make the cut!! I seriously doubt if ALL THREE will get in (I'll explain why later) but it's sure nice to dream!!
THURMAN MUNSON is a finalist via the "Modern Baseball Era" ballot. Munson was Yankees Captain from 1976-1979, when he died at age 32 in a plane crash.
DON MATTINGLY was Captain from 1991-1995, when he retired. He is also a finalist via the "M.B.E." ballot, and, like Munson, he was a TERRIFIC baseball player!!
And, DEREK JETER is eligible for the Hall via the "Baseball Writers Association." It's his first year of eligibilty and he's a SHOO-IN to be a first ballot Hall-of-Famer.
His baseball skills were impeccable, but there's something I admire about Jeter's CHARACTER. Like Barack Obama, Jeter had a black dad and white mom but UNlike Obama ("The First Black President"), Jeter never called himself "The First Black CAPTAIN" of the greatest franchise in sports history!! (Nor did anyone ELSE call him that!!) It's because Jeter was awarded HIS position on MERIT, and everybody knows Obama didn't have any real qualifications to be President.
But, I digress....back to the HALL OF FAME voting, Lol!!
My prediction: Only JETER will make it in 2020, but he WON'T be unanimous like his teammate MARIANO RIVERA was a year ago. (It will be close to unanimous, however.)
Of the three, Jeter was the longest TENURED Captain and, in fact, of all 15 Yankee Captains in their history, nobody has served as Yankee Captain as long as Jeter did. (And that includes two guys named BABE RUTH and LOU GEHRIG!!) Only Jeter has the career length, career STATS and 5 World Series Championships under his belt, when compared to Mattingly (0) and Munson (2). He played 20 years with the Yanks, and though the other two played ONLY for the Bronx Bombers, their careers were cut short by either death (Munson-10 year career) or injury (Mattingly-12 year career.) All three played with their WHOLE HEARTS in the time they played, and that's why fans LOVE them.
If you want to look at the ODDS of all three getting in on January 21st, consider this: of the 15 Yankee Captains in their history only 5 have made it into the Hall. That's 1 out of 3, and 3 Ex-Captains are eligible NOW. I say only ONE of those 3 (Jeter) will make it, but I'd LOVE to be wrong!!
OTHER new potential HOF inductees include Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi, Raul Ibanez and Alfonso Soriano, each of whom played PART of their careers with the Yanks. RETURNING are Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, two pitchers who were on the Yanks but followed each other to Houston and back with what I thought was a VERY freaky friendship. Because they have both subsequently been accused of cheating and PETTITTE came clean (Clemen's DIDN'T), well, let's just say that I doubt that ANDY is on Roger's CHRISTMAS CARD LIST, Lol!!
In other Yankees news, the team HAS met with TERRIFIC free agent pitchers GERRIT COLE (see my Oct. 22nd blog) and STEPHEN STRASBURG (see November 5th) very recently. I want BOTH of those aces for Christmas!! (Only kidding, I'll settle for ONE of these two as they are BOTH potential Hall of Famers!!)
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