Much no doubt has been written about statistics and baseball. I think baseball is the National Pastime only because it is rich in numbers, has so many years of numbers to draw upon, and therefore reinforces the American passion for putting numbers on everything.

Look at grade schools: we teach reading and numbers. It is a very human thing. Our street games and our formal games are all shot through with numbers.

So Jeter is now a king of an important number, and gets all this adulation. As one of the Sox was quoted in the paper, Jeter is actually (now here is big surprise to all) a pretty great ballplayer and “there is a reason he has 3,000 hits.” Imagine, up to now I had sort of thought it was random, like getting a free cola from an occasional screw top soda cap.

I look forward to the Yankees coming to Fenway as I plan to stand up and cheer for Jeter because I love numbers too and think I can remember the batting averages of people from 60 years ago when I used to study the backs of chewing gum cards. I believe that most people at Fenway will do the same, particularly if a) the Sox are still in first place, and b) the Sox continue to own the Yankees, as they have all this year.

Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated, about the only blog I read (and only because one of my partners forwards his stuff to me), has had a lot of fun messing with numbers and their anomalies (things like Jacoby Ellsbury having many times the number of steals as Jackie Robinson or some infield substitute accumulating over a long and dolorous career more hits than Ted Williams). His piece on Jeter’s 3000th hit touches upon the simultaneous importance and irrelevance of the statistic. Real merit in a ballplayer has to do with integrity and grace and the occasional ability to pick up a team and carry it up a big hill all alone (and then in the locker room babble about how it is a team sport).

Which leads to a final melancholy; whatever the statistics, what can one really say about Manny Ramirez? That can be printed in a blog that my kid may read….