With current Yankees Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera reaching significant career milestones this season, our baseball columnists let you know where they think the two players rank among the team’s all-time greats, a group that includes Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.
VOTE: ALL-TIME GREATEST YANKEES
JOEL SHERMAN
1. Babe Ruth — Because it is Babe Freaking Ruth.
2. Lou Gehrig — He is what the Yankees have inspired to be since: professional, stoic, classy, productive.
3. Joe DiMaggio — He is human folklore.
4. Mickey Mantle — A generation of men still speak of him as if he were a burning bush, not a baseball player.
5. Derek Jeter — If this were most important Yankees people, the choice would be George Steinbrenner. I would argue Mariano Rivera was the most valuable Yankee of the past 15 seasons. Nevertheless, Jeter is the face of this era — a logical heir along the Gehrig/DiMaggio line.
MIKE VACCARO
1. Babe Ruth — Without him, nothing that came after would have mattered near as much. Or may have happened at all.
2. Joe DiMaggio — Inherited a famous team and made it iconic, followed iconic players and became mythic in his own right.
3. Mariano Rivera — You could argue, with cause, that without him the Yankees still are searching for their first championship since 1978.
4. Don Mattingly — He isn’t neighbors with many of his pinstriped brethren in Cooperstown, but at a dark moment in team history he made certain the Yankees still carried themselves as Yankees.
5. Mickey Mantle — At his very best, there may never have been another player born who was more talented, and at his worst he still played every game as if it might be his last.
KEVIN KERNAN
1. Babe Ruth — Forever No. 1.
2. Lou Gehrig — The Iron Horse was the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
3. Joe DiMaggio — Hard to bump Joltin’ Joe.
4. Derek Jeter — Mr. 3,000.
5. Mariano Rivera — The most valuable member of the Yankees title teams across the past 15 years.