Jemele Hill is not bad at all, although Rob Parker is my favorite. If you think Jemele is bad I'd ask that you try to watch The 2 Live Stews for a few minutes.
You're right; I should not have been so definitive. But I still maintain, defense aside (only because it's too hard to quantify), Jeter is the better player; he leads in *most* offensive categories and by a fairly significant #. I mention this not to dismiss Biggio but because I'm part of a group that too often dismisses Jeter and needs to remind myself every now and again that, hype aside, he's a really great player. He's an overrated player who's vastly underrated, if that makes sense.
Just search Biggio in the search box on the NYT website. It is the first article and it discusses him crossing the 3,000 hit mark, and that like Jeter he was a shell of his former self, but it was a great moment doing it at home and it being a 5 hit game. Biggio says that he could have played another couple of years (as a part-time player).
David Aldridge seems to be well liked. I don't hear/read people saying a lot of negative stuff about J.A. Adande. Steven A. Smith gets ridiculed because of his delivery as much as anything else. Who hasn't seen the cheesepuff thing and laughed because it is dead on?
don't want to derail this thread, but I do like J A a lot also. thanks for your reasoned response. its an issue i really try to bite my tongue on.
Most sports talking heads have paid a lot of dues to get where they are. People can hate but the fact is they have a lot of knowledge and experience before they ever get on a national broadcast like espn. Some are actors/comedians, this is true, but most are well respected journalist.
Very accurate. Jeter's career OPS is 40 something points higher than Biggio, and while Biggio hit more homeruns, Jeter actually slugs at a higher clip. Gets on base at a better clip and gets hits at a better clip. He's going to hit 3000 hits in about 1000 less at bats. As to the stolen bases, I'd point out that Jeter's numbers there are depressed because he's been in the American League on a Yankee team that didn't believe in stealing bases for the vast majority of his career, at least at the top of the lineup. Edit: Let me add that at his best, Biggio was better than Jeter. Jeter has just been excellent more consistently.
Lets see how Jeter's OPS looks if he plays until he is 41. And if you are going to credit being on the Yankees as to why the fewer stolen bases, than you have to recognize being in those great lineups also boosted his numbers. Also you have to wonder how many doubles would have turned into homers if they had played in the Juice Box instead of the Dome during Biggio's prime. The Crawford boxes were very kind to him in his later years.
Biggio is a first ballot as well as Jeter will be when the time comes. Biggio went a whole season without hitting into a double play. That tells you all you need to know about his hustle and how hard he played every second he was on that field.
Obviously extenuating circumstances there. They're all HOFers in my mind. Even Palmeiro. You can't just take an era of baseball and decide not to induct anyone to the Hall for that decade+ just because you're some tightly wound baseball writer who believes even for just a moment that the game's "purity" needs to be preserved. As if the spitballers, cheaters, and racists already in the Hall did something to establish a standard. And btw Colin Cowherd made the same argument Bayless did on a radio show a few years ago, and that set me to never like Cowherd ever in my life. These Northeast media guys who suffer from the myopia of the big city can use all the numbers they want, but the crux of their argument is the "eye test". As in Biggio didn't "come off" as a HOFer to them. Well they can shove it because their eye test is inherently biased and ANYONE that watched Biggio from 93-99 knows that he was a living breathing HOFer. He had the aura. Stupid bagel-eating diaper-wetting sports "journalists" that were still cutting their teeth as beat writers for the Punxsutawney Picayune in the mid-90's don't deserve to have an opinion on this matter.
REPPED. Put in Roidger and Bonds, too. And McGwire. Put a little asterisk if it'll make your little sensitivities feel better. And for that matter, put in Pete Freaking Rose. The Hall of Fame is a separate entity from MLB, and it is supposed to recognize career achievements on the field. This sanctimonious uber-pious hypocritical bull**** does nothing but hurt the Hall's credibility, imo.
The only reason why I wouldn't vote for Palmeiro is they way he lied in that Congressional hearing. Plenty have lied, but not so directly and adamantly, just to get caught not just a short time later.
