Who stays iconic into the distant future?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Griffey seems certain. Pujols too. Ohtani unless he crashes and burns very quickly.

What about Jeter? Ichiro? Or does one ultimately need the long ball?

Barring a miraculous reversal, does Trout retain any of his former magic?

Is Ripken still iconic?

Does the hobby ultimately forgive Bonds and ARod and Clemens and focus on their numbers?

Does Verlander become bigger as time passes?

Does Randy Johnson ever get appreciated as one of the very few best pitchers ever?

Can Soto get there given how little people like him, even if he puts up incredible numbers by the metrics?

[jb217676]

Addison Barger!

[Eric72]

Jeter, for sure.

Copied and pasted from another thread:

Originally Posted by Eric72

As a preface to this, I am not a Yankees fan.

I'm confident Jeter will remain iconic for generations to come.

• 20 year career, entirely with the Yankees
• 5 World Series Championships
• The only Yankee with 3,000+ hits
• Career .310 hitter
• 14-time All-Star
• 5 Gold Gloves
• 5 Silver Sluggers
• Rookie of the Year
• World Series MVP
• Etc., etc.

Even if he was a curmudgeon (he's not) to everyone, the hardware alone would cement his legacy. Yes, Jeter's an iconic figure. In my opinion, he always will be.

Oh, yeah...he's also got this going for him:

7 - Mantle
5 - DiMaggio
4 - Gehrig
3 - Ruth
2 - Jeter

[jb217676]

I was only half joking about Barger. Reminds me of a young Josh Donaldson. Josh was a late bloomer, Bam-Bam Barger is blooming earlier and is going to be the Jays power hitting 3rd baseman for the next 10 years. I think I'll stash a couple of his nicer rookie cards!

[BioCRN]

Trout's biggest problem, even when healthy and producing, is he has the media personality of a wet piece of cardboard.

He's a boring interview and doesn't feel the need to saturate himself all over commercial media pimping out stuff. Even his Subway commercials were kinda boring.

Nothing wrong with any of that, but we've seen what a consistent advertising media presence can do to someone's legacy.

Aaron Judge should be more popular than he is, but he's not a huge advertising tool, either.

Pujols has room for upside if he manages to snag a managerial job somewhere. It seems he really wants to hang around the game a bit longer.

[BearBailey]

A lot of it will depend on who they put in video games, I know my boys would always ask me about “new” cards released on mlb the show. There was a brief time 1971 topps vida blue was the best pitcher on the game their minds were blown that I knew who he was and could tell them all about that season. For the past 10 years or so they always ask me about the legends players, I think it’s great as it teaches them about cards and baseball history, and then I can pull out most of the cards and show them.

[Balticfox]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

What about Jeter? Ichiro? Or does one ultimately need the long ball?

Yes to both because you don't need the long ball. Ty Cobb is as iconic as they come.

And how many New York Yankees have been better overall players than Derek Jeter?

[bk400]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Griffey seems certain. Pujols too. Ohtani unless he crashes and burns very quickly.

What about Jeter? Ichiro? Or does one ultimately need the long ball?

Barring a miraculous reversal, does Trout retain any of his former magic?

Is Ripken still iconic?

Does the hobby ultimately forgive Bonds and ARod and Clemens and focus on their numbers?

Does Verlander become bigger as time passes?

Does Randy Johnson ever get appreciated as one of the very few best pitchers ever?

Can Soto get there given how little people like him, even if he puts up incredible numbers by the metrics?

Agree on Griffey and Pujols.

Ohtani will be iconic even if he crashes and burns and looks like Mike Trout for the next 10 years. He's just too unusually good.

Ripken will also remain iconic, as will Ichiro. In some ways, they may become even more iconic than they are now as the game changes and people appreciate how hard it is to have done what they did. Kind of like Ozzie Smith and Brooks Robinson.

Jeter will always be iconic as well. Yankees captain, a lotta rings. Clutch performer. I think he will stand the test of time more than Judge, unfortunately.

I don't think the hobby will ever forgive the roid boys. The hobby doesn't like asterisks, as far as I can tell.

Randy Johnson played for too many teams, IMHO, to ever be that popular. Same with Verlander.

Juan Soto will never be iconic.

[bk400]

Originally Posted by jb217676

I was only half joking about Barger. Reminds me of a young Josh Donaldson. Josh was a late bloomer, Bam-Bam Barger is blooming earlier and is going to be the Jays power hitting 3rd baseman for the next 10 years. I think I'll stash a couple of his nicer rookie cards!

Who's Josh Donaldson?

Just kidding -- couldn't help myself.