President’s Day weekend is good timing for me to bring back a question I introduced five years ago on twitter & also on my local tv show.
The concept of .. “The Mount Rushmore of ________ ” is far from a novel idea, but I did put a unique spin to it.
From a sports context it is an interesting question to debate the .. 4 greatest players for a team / franchise.
When it comes to the Yankees there is not much debate when it is almost unanimously agreed upon that the Yankees Mount Rushmore consists of …
BABE RUTH , LOU GEHRIG , JOE DIMAGGIO , & MICKEY MANTLE
These are not only all-time Yankee greats, they are all-time MLB greats. Babe Ruth is arguably the greatest, most dominant athlete in the history off all sports.
So as great as Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera were, they are not eclipsing the four immortal Yankees from yester-year. In addition if you did want to argue Jeet or Mo versus one of the old time Yankees, many Yankee fans never saw the legendary fab-four play. You’re comparing your player that you have seen for years, (many times in person), to players that you only see black & white footage, and marvel at their statistical achievements.
Here’s where my unique spin on the question becomes a lot more fun and interesting to debate.
The old time Yankees played from the 1920’s through the 1960’s. That’s 5 decades. The
‘20‘s , ‘30‘s , ‘40‘s , ‘50‘s , & ‘60‘s
George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in the ’70’s. He, and now the Steinbrenner family are in their 5th decade of ownership ..
‘70‘s , ‘80‘s , ‘90‘s , ‘00‘s , ‘10‘s
This makes for interesting parallels and symmetry in my opinion.
We’re talking about 100 years of Yankee history split almost right in half.
The old Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 , & Steinbrenner bought the team 50 years later in 1973
So with that in mind I propose to call Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio & Mantle the ..
OLD TIME YANKEES . As Yankee fans we can brag that no other franchise can boast of a better 4 .. not only in baseball but in any sport, when you consider stats & championships.
But let’s also create a Mount Rushmore for the modern Yankees, which can be called the … STEINBRENNER YANKEES
As a die-hard Yankee fan, give me your …
STEINBRENNER YANKEE MOUNT RUSHMORE !!
(the first two are easy, but then it gets harder)
The last time I asked the question five years ago, I received a big response on twitter , I even had Harvey Araton give us his choices on my tv shown (originally aired 4/22/12)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9d1MSa6w1k
Look forward to hearing from Yankee fans, and as always,
GO NYY !!
