That’s a swing and amiss, Manny.
Diamond legend Manny Ramirez bizarrely claimed in a recent interview that Derek Jeter would be “just a regular player” if he played in Kansas City rather than the Big Apple.
But when Page Six asked the Captain’s former Yankees teammate CC Sabathia what he thought about Ramirez’s take, he begged to differ.
Ramirez recently made an appearance in the New England Sports Network commentary box during a Red Sox game and said, “You gotta understand this: If you haven’t played in Boston or New York, you’re not in the big leagues. It’s like, if you put Jeter in Kansas City in those years, he was just a regular player.”
But when we ran it by Sabathia — who played on the same team as Jeter from 2009 to 2019 — he told us, “I think Derek Jeter won five championships when he was playing, so if he played in Kansas City he would not be a regular player.”
Pin-point accurate as ever, CC.
Jeter won the 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009 World Series with the team, and was a virtually unanimous pick to for Hall of Fame in 2020. Meanwhile, not to take away from Ramirez’s abilities on the field, but it’s looking unlikely he’s going to make it into the Hall at all.
Sabathia, 41, recently collaborated with baseball cap company Melin.
He helped design the logo and used a New York skyline, for obvious reasons, and an image of a grapefruit tree.
“I grew up in my grandma’s backyard,” the California native told us, “I started playing baseball by hitting grapefruits.”