Simply Jeterian

Since he tied Lou Gehrig for most hits in Yankees history, Derek Jeter has received praise from many circles.

• From Peter Abraham: “I’m very happy for him,” Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said. “He carries himself in a manner that’s worthy of passing Gehrig.”
• From Buster Olney:

Derek Jeter has made it hard to hate the Yankees, writes Dan Bickley. From the story, Arizona general manager Josh Byrnes: "To me, he's the best player of his generation. He's the best example of his generation that we can present to our younger players."

Jim Leyland says, as mentioned within this Tom Gage piece, that he thinks the attention to Jeter's achievement is well-deserved: "It means health, longevity and extraordinary talent. It will get a lot of play and should. If you had to pick one representative for baseball over the last 15 years, it would be Jeter -- not only as a player, but as a person. … If you picked an athlete from each sport to go visit the Pope, he's the one I'd pick for baseball."

• Tyler Kepner on Jeter breaking the record
• MLB.com has some more reaction from around the league
  
• The New York Post says that Jeter lit up the house he built
• The New York Times looks at how Lou Gehrig was described in the New Yorker 80 years ago
• So, naturally, The New Yorker has a profile now on Derek Jeter and why he's so like--and dreading the end (H/T Baseball Musings)
• Rob Neyer "plays the Jeter game" and tries to rank him among the Yankees greats
• In other Derek Jeter news, he took out Minka Kelly in public The Big Lead reports

Let's see who Jeter has done the most damage against:

Jeter's most hits vs a pitcher:

1. Tim Wakefield - 31
2. Sidney Ponson - 29
3. Rodrigo Lopez - 26
4. Pedro Martinez -22
5. Jamie Moyer - 22

Jeter's most HR vs an opponent:

1. Boston - 23
2. Baltimore - 22
3. Texas - 21
4. Tampa Bay - 19
5. Seattle/Toronto - 17

Jeter's most HR vs a pitcher:

1. Sidney Ponson - 5
2. Rodrigo Lopez - 4
3. David Wells - 4
4. Many tied at 3

A few other facts from Derek's 223 career regular home runs from Baseball-Reference:

• He has 22 lead-off home runs
• He only has one walk-off home run
• He also only has one inside-the-park home run which came in his first season
• The other thing he only has one of? Grandslam. I was there to see it on Father's Day in 2005 against the Cubs

But here's a great stat: 57% of Derek Jeter's home runs have either tied the game of given his team the lead and only 16.5% have been hit when the difference was four runs or greater.