A lot of the A-Rod hate in NY comes from the fact that the Jeter comparison haunts him. They used to be boys (when A-Rod was in Texas) after having met on a photo shoot or something away from baseball. They started hanging. Whenever each guy was in the other's city, they stayed with each other. They were part of a group of great young shortstops. Then A-Rod kind of dissed Derek in a GQ Magazine piece (saying Derek didn't put up the numbers he did, so he didn't deserve the same money, and that Derek never had to lead, etc.), and Derek never forgave him. Then when they ended up as teammates, it got really awkward. Though A-Rod was a better shortstop, it was Derek's team, so he had to move to 3rd base (honestly, Derek wasn't capable of playing 3rd, so it was really more that than anything else). Then it became clear who was stronger mentally - Derek handles the pressure and press in NY like a champ, while A-Rod wilted under the same attention. He'd never taken an important at-bat in his whole career, while Derek had already built his legend as a clutch, post-season and late-game regular season player with a litany of big hits and home runs in clutch situations, AND big defensive plays too (him diving into the seats for pop-ups and coming out bloody, etc.). Meanwhile, A-Rod couldn't handle playing in a place where the fans think a 3rd inning at-bat in April against the Red Sox is important. He bitches up in at-bats after the 7th inning with his team tied or trailing, but will hit a home run when his team is ahead by 3 runs. Derek publicly backed Jason Giambi, a steroid cheat, because Jason is a geniune dude that everyone liked. He let A-Rod twist in the breeze and struggle, both because he was burned by him personally, and because A-Rod simply proved himself a phony. A-Rod comes up short of Derek in just about every way other than raw statistics (but he's a bigger, better ATHLETE, so if both are healthy, he'd always post better numbers), but when it comes down to who you'd want at the plate with the game on the line, it's always going to be Derek.
"The best kind of pride is that which compels a man to do his best when no one is watching."