Showing the utter moronicness of those who participated, a Siena College survey of New York residents found that they have chosen New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter as the greatest athlete in the history of New York.
I need to ask one question: who are the numbskulls who participated in this poll? Were they under the age of 21, or just plain stupid (or both)?
Fourteen percent of those polled said he was the best ever. Ruth was named by 11 percent of the participants. There was a three-way tie for third between Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Joe Namath.
And get this, Carmelo Anthony, who was only signed by the Knicks a few weeks ago, finished ahead of Lou Gehrig and Jackie Robinson in the poll.
And, surprise, 41 percent of those polled said they were not sports fans.
More than 100 of those polled were from Long Island, and they picked Ruth over Jeter 12 percent to 10 percent.
The Yankees are Long Island's favorite team--which is a great changeover, as Long Island was Mets' territory as far as I am concerned--with 38 percent of the vote, followed not even that closely by the Jets, Mets, Knicks, Giants and Rangers.
Don't get me wrong, I am a Derek Jeter fan all the way. He is the heart and soul of the Yankees, and has been for the past 15 years or so. But to say that he was a better athlete than Babe Ruth ... c'mon.
Ruth was not only New York's greatest athlete, but he might have been the greatest athlete of all time in any professional sport.
Ruth is best known for hitting 714 home runs, but many people forget that he started out as a pitcher. If he started out as an outfielder, I don't think anyone would have caught him yet in the homerun derby, as he probably would have hit well over 800 dingers.
His batting average, power numbers, and records far exceed those of Jeter. He changed the game, from one of "dead ball" to one of power hitting. He was unquestionably the most famous face on the planet in the 1920s and 1930s, and he actually made an average salary that was much more than what the President was making, which is not unusual only in that he did it during the Depression years.
As I said, a good number of those polled weren't sports fans, but I wonder how many of those polled were in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.
You know that the younger ones polled have absolutely no understanding of their past, and they only know what has taken place in the world since maybe 1980. I call them "The MTV Generation," because everything seems to be geared to that year that MTV started. Everything before that is "ancient" and not worth understanding.
Bah! What balderdash and nonsense.
And by the way, the greatest basketball player I ever saw was not Michael Jordan--it was Julius Erving when he played in the ABA for the New York Nets.
Jordan couldn't even carry his shoes!
Take that, you people who don't know what you are talking about!
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