Radio Free Montone: 'And Now The End Is Here'

By John Montone, 1010 WINS

Derek Jeter. What an overrated, greedy fraud.

You know that black and white Gatorade commercial with Sinatra singing, "My Way," and Derek Jeter getting out of his car to mingle with his adoring fans under the el before taking the field at Yankee Stadium. Did it choke you up a bit?

Well then you must be a sucker. That's what one sports commentator recently said, or rather shrieked about the Captain, "Yo! This clown's a fraud and you are all suckers." Sorry if I can't take a guy on TV who begins his commentary with, "Yo!" seriously.

But he wasn't the only one. In recent days obscure and once-famous, now forgotten sports talking heads have been distancing themselves from Jeter's admirers in the stands and in the press box. One guy whose head never quite fit through a door, no matter how big the door, seemed to take almost diabolical pleasure in pronouncing that Jeter is, "No where near an immortal," as he filled the TV screen with all manner of numbers which suggested the Yankees may have won all those titles with say…Ruben Tejada at short stop.

Among the Yankees he claimed deserved a higher place in pinstripe history than Jeter were Graig Nettles, Mike Mussina and Willie Randolph. What sport was this guy paid to watch, bocce?

Derek Jeter has over 3,400 base hits in his 20-year career. Number six in baseball history. But those who now worship at the altar of Sabermetric statistics would call Jeter a "compiler," a player who put up big numbers because he played for so long. Well, to last in the major leagues for two decades you have to be a top notch performer. And he was.

While researching this blog I found one guy who was so intent to damage the "Jeter Myth" that he laid out frame-by-frame like the Zapruder film Derek's dive into the stands against the Red Sox when he emerged with the baseball and a bloodied face. This guy's contention was that Jeter could have slammed into the wall after making the catch and it was a foul ball anyway.

Now for the record Jeter also made the smartest play in post-season history, his famous "flip" to nab Jeremy Giambi at home plate and allow the Yankees to come back and win that series and go on to the World Series.

For 20-years I have rooted against Derek Jeter. I'm a bitter fan of New York's other ball club and "The Captain" has been a reminder of all the great and glorious moments missing from the history of the Mets. But as Sinatra so beautifully sang, "And now the end is here…," and so I quote Yankee Manager Joe Girardi who when asked why Jeter has meant so much to New York baseball fans, said, "…they're asking for players to give everything they've got, to do it the right way and to be tough and they don't want to hear any excuses."

Sounds like…Derek Jeter.

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