My first real introduction to baseball was my cousin Richie’s autographed Don Mattingly placard. He put it on his shelf after meeting him thanks to the Miliken Boys’ Club in 1991. I didn’t understand the sport, and didn’t care for it since I already had Patrick Ewing and the Madison Square Bullies playing at their peak. My interest in baseball grew because I too became a member of the Boys Club, observing as the uniformed kids clapped their dusty cleats while the rest of us played pool or watched a movie. I got to go to the Old Yankee Stadium for the first time in 1992 (My counselor would say, “You’re not getting a ball from these seats unless Jose Canseco smacks it harder than he’s ever done in his life!), but I didn’t really appreciate it until 1996.
Enter Derek Sanderson Jeter.
From the beginning, I found myself gravitating towards that team because they looked like they were having serious fun. In particular, Jeter looked like he could have been one of the kids who I saw play in East River Park, the ebullience and bounce every time a play went his way. Even the odd fro-coiffe Jeter sported on his head for most of his life made him seem more, not less, approachable. He had a billion interviews, none of them particularly interesting, and the commercials always came off effortlessly. He just had to smile and deliver the lines. His at-bat routine (slow walk, square feet in the batter’s box, right arm extension while re-shuffling his feet, squint at the pitcher, reserve swing his bat two times, then the ready nod) must have added a full 10 minutes to the game, but everyone watched at attention just the same.
He was the man.
Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa carried MLB from the depravity of the full-season lockout of 1994. The New York Yankees rebounded from having their owner suspended from baseball in the early 90’s while Buck Showalter and others in the Yankee brass played the waiting game with their farm system. Paul O’Neill, Scott Brosius, John Wetteland, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte, David Cone, Tino Martinez, and any number of players from the dynasty years may have had more critical numbers during the dynasty years (1996 – 2000).
None of this mattered. Derek Jeter was the everyday shortstop, and gave it everything he had on the field. And I kept watching.
As I’ve gotten older, though, there’s all this other stuff that comes to the fore, too. His 2001 locker-room interview after the Yankees lost to the Diamondbacks and, still drenched in sweat and adrenaline, exclaimed cynically that these weren’t the same dynasty Yankees, almost dismissing his own .148 batting average in the series. The seemingly infallible Jeter, the one who for years controlled every bit of his persona on and off the field, came unraveled in a moment of bitter honesty. His all-star roster of women he reportedly dated and the unconfirmed but slightly credible stories about his life off-camera brought him down a few notches to some, but he wasn’t any wilder than Reggie Jackson, Keith Hernandez, or Lawrence Taylor in their heyday. His shorter range on defense and pretty good statistics still didn’t do him favors when people argued that Alex Rodriguez or Nomar Garciaparra were the best shortstops during Jeter’s tenure, but he was still the 1996 AL Rookie of the Year and the 2000 All-Star Game and World Series MVP, remarkable considering he only had six years under his belt.
But the scrutiny unsettled many of us because without Paul O’Neill and Scott Brosius after 2001, and with George Steinbrenner’s renewed emphasis on paying for players like Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Hideki Matsui, and a host of others, Derek Jeter couldn’t win as the leader and eventual captain. The acquisition of Alex Rodriguez might have jarred Derek Jeter some, too, because, at the time, A-Rod was considered the next true legend statistically, at least according to ESPN. When Alex, not Derek, had the best infield arm, the best offensive stats, the most MVPs, the largest contracts, the dumbest luck in supposedly clutch situation, and the most stories on the back page of the New York media, I had to wonder if having his best-friend-turned-enemy on his team got to him otherwise unquestioned leadership.
Obviously, winning things changes perspectives, too. In 2009, with A-Rod imploding with a steroid admission, baseball (and sports media) re-adjusted itself again to make Derek Jeter the face of baseball again. The contract negotiation of 2010, where only the Yankees insisted on kicking dirt on his legacy only made the Yankees look ridiculous since Jeter only wanted to be with the Yankees. With MLB hungry for a beacon of steroid-free superstars, Derek Jeter, the crown jewel of the most storied franchise in the league, fit perfectly.
He also happens to be my favorite player. Watching a few games every year (including Game 1 of the 2009 World Series) meant donning one of two Derek Jeter jerseys proudly down the school hallway and to the game. Seeing his face sparks memories of parades and met promises. Even when, for a second, I felt like Jeter should have retired in 2011, when it became super-obvious that he couldn’t reach for many fast grounders hit to left, when teams put their best second-basemen in line with his opposite field ambitions, when his screaming hits weren’t homers but doubles just inside the warning track where Jeffrey Maier couldn’t tip it, he was still my favorite. He allowed us to project our aspirations on him because, even when he failed miserably, he at least signaled to us that he was trying his best, and that there might be a next time.
Except there’s no next time. This is it, my favorite baseball player’s jersey hanging the way his bat does now. I could care less about the things he didn’t accomplish, nor do I care for hero-worship, but the most you can expect from anyone with that many fans is to give it all they got.
Thank you, #2. You’re the man.
“I’m not going to boast about being the shortstop on a team that has won three of the last four World Championships, but it does feel good. I’m not going to tell you that as a 26-year old multimillionaire who still has all of his hair all of his teeth, and can get dates, I have a perfect life, but it’s good. I’m not going to tell you that you should want to be like me, because everyone should want to be their own person, but I assure you that it’s fun to be me. What I do want to tell you is that I’m proud of where I am and how I got to this stage in my life, and I think there’s a way for everyone to benefit from all that I have experienced while making it my dream. I’m proud of the guidance my parents gave me in helping me determined the best ways to methodically move closer and close to my dream, and I’m proud of how I’ve worked to reach that dream and maintain it. For me, the dream of being a baseball player is a daily challenge – not only living that dream but ensuring it stays alive.”