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Peter,

Great post. Yankees fans need to calm down about this. We all loved Paulie, but Joe DiMaggio he was not.

Only quibble I have is with your description of Martin. I would describe his hirings and firings as the stuff of tragicomedy. It got to the point it was disgusting. The Yanks needed him in '75-'76. They needed him to go away by '78 (at the very latest).

In the future, #42 will have to be retired, of course (putting aside for the moment that all of baseball has retired that number). If #13 and #2 stay healthy and productive, their numbers will have to be retired as well -- even if #13 never wins a World Series.

Interestingly, Andy Pettite's father wanted him to re-sign with the Yankees, not the Astros. Pettite was on a pace to exceed Ford's win total. He reasoned that a Yankee lefty with four world series rings (potentially more) and more wins than Ford would have had to be elected to the HOF. What do you think? We all love Pettite, but frankly I don't see him as an HOFer.

I found your comments on the retired numbers to be quite interesting. I do not agree completely, but you make some good points. I think your standard is a bit too high though. In my mind, retired numbers are an honor that a team can give to players that just fall short of teh HOF. The HOF should be far harder to achieve than getting a number retired. When it comes to numbers, you are only being compared to the players that played for your club, not the entire league. This especially makes sense for teams other than the Yankees, that have none or few HOFamers. It really is a case by case call. I agree on O'neill, but disagree on Mattingly and Guidry, those 2 are just short of HOF quality, while Paulie is pretty far off. Bernie's # should be retired, as he is a borderline Hall of Famer, but not Maris (too far below). By the way, Jeter and Mo a given, I vote "no" on Torre.

Thanks Greg and it's funny you should mention Pettitte. Tyler Kepner had this piece in his NYT blog today

http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/andy-pettitte-future-hall-of-famer/

I have to admit I would not have guessed that Pettitte was 2nd in the majors in wins since 1995. But, I think the thing that kills his chances are the HGH reports. If Andy played another four years and got up to 250 wins, he would be in the conversation, but I think the drug stuff will end it quickly.

And don't forget to add #6 to your list. I think he is going up.

Thanks Brian, it's a tough call. I am very partial to both Mattingly and Guidry and Bernie was my favorite player of the most recent dynasty. I think Mattingly has a much better HOF case than either Guidry or Bernie because you can look from 1984-1987 and say that he was the best player in baseball.

To me Guidry brings up Red Ruffing and the Yankees placed a plaque in his honor in Monument Park (to be fair his number was already retired for Munson) The Yankees need to think about using the plaque honor more and the number honor less in my mind.

And, I agree Jeter will get in as will Mo. Torre is a tougher one. And don't forget about #13 who will have been a Yankee for the majority of his career when all is said and done....

the HOF is watered down, why water down a significant honor such as retired team jersey?

I think you hit it right on, and by coincedence, the Sox do too.

Only HOF players/owners whatever can get number retired by Sox, they also have to have their last year in professional ball with the Sox. Hence why Pudge Fisk served in the front office briefly to hit that requirement after he retired from playing. (kind of weak , yeah).

I love the piece on Munson, while hating the Yankees in the 70's as I grew up, there were a couple of players I really respected, Munson, Nettles, Guidry and Catfish Hunter. The rest I hated. Great catchers, by stats or leadership abilities are a unique breed and create an atmosphere on a team that is incredible and rock solid.

While Varitek never has been a great hitter, his abilities with the pitchers and intensity overall lands him just short of that "greatness". Fisk, Munson, Bench stand out in memory for me. Good post.

Peter,

I hadn't seen Kepner's article when prior to my post. Even putting aside the HGH issue, I don't see Pettite's career as meriting entry to the HOF. In my mind, he hasn't dominated nearly enough. I don't even see him as borderline.

Loved Guidry and Mattingly while they were on the Yanks, but they didn't dominate long enough, either. I am convinced that had Mattingly's back not betrayed him, he would have sustained his excellence over a long enough period of time to merit induction. And no, I don't think Kirby Puckett, whose induction is often cited by Mattingly's proponents as justification for inducting Mattingly, should have been inducted either.

Had he lived, I suspect Munson would have made it to the HOF. Yankees fans and Red Sox fans will argue forever over who was the better catcher, but they were close enough that I think his entire body of work would have sufficed. I think the writers would have felt that it would have been wrong to induct the one without the other. However, he might not have stayed with the Yankees. I can remember reading back in 1978 that he wanted to play for the Indians so he could be closer to home. I'll bet he grew fed up with the Bronx Zoo, as well. I could see him signing with Cleveland for less money.

I assume you were referring to Joe Torre when you mentioned number 6. I would argue that #6 should be retired already -- in honor of Tony Lazzeri. Check out his career stats at www.baseball-reference.com. He was a much-feared member of Murderer's Row. Unfortunately, this outstanding HOFer has been largely forgotten by Yankee fans, as his career was overshadowed by Ruth and Gehrig.

BL-

I have to say I am surprised you like Nettles considering what happened with him and Bill Lee. Munson-Fisk was Yankees-Red Sox in my mind. Nomar-Jeter started to get there but they just don't have a similar positional rivalry anymore and it's a shame.

Greg

I agree, I think Pettitte's other problem is that Mussina has better numbers in comparison and will probably finish with a lot more wins than Pettitte and he shouldn't make it either.

Totally agree on Mattingly and Puckett. They are both part of the "if" category of the HOF in my mind. If they hadn't been injured they both would have been in.

I did mean Torre and Lazzeri was a great player, but I also think of Roy White when I see that number. It seems to me that a fair thing to do would be retire it in honor of all three of them. I know it breaks my standards, but if they are going to retire it anyway, might as well get a lot of bang for their buck. You could throw Steve Sax in there too. (just kidding)

Peter - here is my take on Nettles. He was, as I stated, one of the few Yankees I could like prior to the fight, during and after the fight I actually believed it was Mickey Rivers that nailed Bill Lee. Until years later that was my belief for some reason. Nettles survived in my memory I guess

The yankeenumbers website is great -- thanks.

When a revered Yankee like O'Neill or Williams retires, the team should just put the number out of circulation for several years and then decide what to do.

What I don't like is to immediately hand over the number to some new guy. If O'Neill's number is not retired, they could at least save it for a leading prospect who is likely to do justice to the tradition of the number.

In Hawkins case, the O'Neill number had been out of circulation long enough and the Clemente angle was compelling enough to justify him using the number. Also, he is a well respected veteran who has paid his dues.

By the way, wasn't 22 Clemens' number? I guess he's not in the pantheon any more.

Corey

That's a great point about Clemens. I was also thinking about how #46 went from Pettitte to Donovan Osborne in 2004. Pettitte meant as much to the Yankees as O'Neil and I don't remember a huge outcry about that at the time.

Help me out as a Sox fan, is the loyalty and man-love for Paul O'Neill strictly from a clubhouse, leadership, good guy perspective. His stats in NY were good, not great by any stretch. Not intended as a slam, honestly.

Would it be equal to say Sox fans professing how much Varitek means to the Sox or back in the day, my boyhood idolizing of Fred Lynn (although Lynn's stats per day healthy would out-weigh O'Neills)?

On baseballreference.com, O'Neill's similar batters are :

Bobby Bonilla (923)
Del Ennis (922)
Fred Lynn (915)
Garret Anderson (909)
Reggie Smith (904)
Bernie Williams (904)
Shawn Green (900)
Ruben Sierra (892)
Moises Alou (891)
George Hendrick (891)

Funny that I mentioned Lynn (my boyhood idol) and he showed up on the list.

Nice players and many of them beloved by their fans, not great careers by any of them though.

See Bl, there are two types of Yankees' fans, those who remember life before 1996 and those who don't or weren't fans back then. (I imagine you see the same thing with Red Sox fans pre and post 2004)

For the post 1996 crowd O'Neill has become the epitome of those championship teams. The guy had a lot of qualities you respect in a player, he left it all out on the field and he never gave up. For post-96rs there hasn't been a player like him since and they miss that.

For those of us who are a little longer in the tooth, we have seen players like O'Neill before. I always think of Lou Pinella. Pinella was a great Yankee, great player in his day and I think all of us who saw him play still feel strange when we see Wilson Betemit or someone else wearing #14.

But, we have moved on and I think the thing keeping the post-96rs from moving on is the fact that they haven't won since O'Neill left. They are not used to the world where the Yankees don't win all the time. If the Yankees had won a World Series since O'Neill left, I bet there wouldn't have been a peep about his number. And, if O'Neill himself were more gracious about it, this would have died down as well.

All I can hope is that his doesn't make the Yankees retire O'Neill's number because "the fans wanted it to happen".

thanks, that answered it perfectly