Hot and cold. Up and down. Cats and dogs. Red Sox and Yankees.
That’s just a casual list of opposite things. Yeah, Red Sox and Yankees. They used to have a rivalry that meant something — like in 2004. Not all Yankees are bad though, and one former Yankee great professed his love for a current Red Sox player.
Somehow, Derek Jeter got tracked down. No, just kidding, he’s down at Yankees spring training. The media asked him who his favorite current MLBer is. Surprise, surprise, he said someone on the Boston Red Sox.
Yeah, that’s right, Jeter’s favorite player in the league is Mookie Betts…
Seriously, that’s a good choice. He had the highest WAR on the Boston Red Sox last season. You could argue he was better than David Ortiz. You might piss some fans off, but you’d have a valid argument.
It’s hard not to like Betts though, even if you’re not a Red Sox fan. The guy puts up some impressive numbers and he’s a real nice guy. Hell, I interviewed him the first time I covered pro baseball (note: I no longer have any affiliation with the site I wrote that one for and would strongly encourage you to check out their rival program, Boston Baseball Magazine, where I’ll be doing some writing this season). But yeah, Betts was a real nice guy — unlike some of these other clowns out there.
For real, Betts is only 23 years old too. He wasn’t quite Mike Trout last season, but he’s in the same crop of elite baseball players. That’s really special. It’s also a huge honor for a guy to receive that high praise from the Yankees captain — because he was probably the most popular player in the game at one time. Yeah, those were the days.
Luckily though, there’s a friendly superstar out there like Mookie Betts who can become everyone’s favorite player in 2017.