Larger Than Life: Today's Future Legends
by Eric Neel
DEREK JETER, SS, NEW YORK YANKEES
...His numbers (despite some serious and legitimate questions about his defensive effectiveness, particularly as it applies to range) are outstanding, but he can't be reduced to statistics because every swing, every throw, comes to us laden with aura -- with some preternatural, supernatural composure that never fails to amaze (even if, it must be said, it also rarely manages to charm) us.
That's par for the course, I guess. No real crime here except Kool-Aid Consumption. This is the real doozy:
(Remember: the subject is: Future Legends)
DAVID ECKSTEIN, SS, ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
In a country that loves gritty and gutty, he is the grittiest, guttiest cat of them all.
He has the averagest, most perfectly mediocre .260 career EqA of any gritty, gutty cat in the world.
He barely can throw the ball across the infield,
Not a good quality for a MLB SS.
and he chokes the bat like a T-baller.
The very definition of "neither here, nor there."
But he comes up big,
He had two good WS games last year. Congratulations. He also has a .358 lifetime SLG.
comes up swinging, and is humble and gracious about every miraculous accomplishment.
He does seem like a nice person. I will grant that.
The guardians of days gone by like to think they have the market cornered on gamers, but this generation has its Eck. And though little, he stacks up.
To whom, exactly? Glenn Hoffman?
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