I don’t and won’t disagree with you, I will take the skilled IF over the RF also. I didn’t see Jackie play and I barely saw Clemente, one WS appearance that I saw on TV and I was really little. So effectively I saw neither play.
I would consider both to be very valuable. The 3000 hits loom large for Clemente but a lifetime .409 OBA for Jackie is priceless.
Jim
But that defeats the purpose of retiring numbers. It’s about honoring players who did a lot for your franchise even if they weren’t considered great enough for the Hall.
The Yankees really don’t need to unretire any numbers, and it would seem really disrespectful. It’s not as if they’re on the verge of having a problem: there are 83 numbers still available.
The retiring is for honoring players who are strongly associated with that team and that number. It was based on Lou Gehrig – he was the only #4 to ever play for the Yankees, so the number is forever associated with him (Other Yankees wore Ruth’s #3 between the time he was released and they got around to retiring it, including one other Hall of Famer).
Numbers under 10 are more distinctive, so losing them all is an issue.
Back to the OP: If Clemente, why not Al Simmons, who inspired American of Polish descent? Why not Dimaggio (and Tony Lazzeri), who did the same for Italian-Americans? Hank Greenberg for Jewish Americans? Pedro Martinez for Dominicans? Hideo Nomo for Japanese?
Throughout MLB history, there are quite a few instances of players from a particular ethnic group who became stars and inspired people in that group, much in the way Clemente inspired Latinos. So it’s not a big difference.
Robinson did more than just inspire an ethnic: he broke a barrier. No one officially banned Latinos from baseball.
That’s a major difference.
Wait, I misunderstood, I thought she meant teams retiring numbers, not the entire league.
:smack: