Baby Bombers Page 2
“He’s a little bit like Derek, to me,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He’s got a smile all the time. He loves to play the game. You always think that he’s going to do the right thing on the field and off the field when you look at him. He’s got a presence about him. He plays the game to win all the time. That’s the most important thing, it’s not about what you did that day.
“I understand that’s a big comparison, but I remember Derek when he was young. He grew into that leadership role, but that was Derek. Derek loved to have fun, loved to laugh, and loved to play the game. Always had a smile on his face and was energetic, and that’s what I see from this kid.”
As the Yankees celebrated Jeter’s accomplishments, retiring his uniform No. 2 while dedicating a Monument Park plaque in his honor, the current players lined the top step of the dugout to absorb a picturesque moment that promised to be recalled as their generation’s Mickey Mantle Day. Jorge Posada called the afternoon “the end of an era,” but it felt like another had already begun; Judge was even deployed in a supporting role, escorting Don Zimmer’s widow, Soot, to home plate.
Derek Jeter poses with his Monument Park plaque prior to the Yankees’ game on May 14, 2017. Jeter specifically selected Mother’s Day for the event to honor his mom, Dorothy. Jeter’s uniform No. 2 was the final remaining single digit to be retired by the Yankees. (© Arturo Pardavila III)
To an incredible ovation, Jeter and his family were driven onto the field in golf carts, with a recording of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” playing through the stadium’s loudspeakers. That same track had been heard on the night when Jeter notched a walk-off hit in his final Yankee Stadium at-bat, accompanying him as he strode alone to his shortstop position to crouch and say a prayer. Posada was correct in stating that this Derek Jeter Day represented a turning point for the organization, but a better place to pinpoint the milestone was September 25, 2014, Jeter’s final day in pinstripes.
There had been gray skies reflecting off the roof of Jeter’s late-model sport utility vehicle as it rumbled underneath the elevated tracks of the 4 train that afternoon, its wipers rhythmically dismissing precipitation. Unbeknownst to anyone walking along River Avenue, one of New York City’s most recognizable celebrities was behind the wheel, approaching the finish line of a celebrated twenty-year journey.
Slowing to a crawl with Yankee Stadium towering above his left shoulder, Jeter descended the ramp that leads into the players’ parking garage. It was a commute that Jeter had made dozens of times that season, motoring from his swanky apartment in Manhattan’s West Village, and this time he was grateful for the privacy that his ride’s tinted glass provided. Choking back tears on the way to his final home game, the outpouring of love and appreciation in a season’s worth of plaudits and celebrations had finally cracked the coolest Yankee.
“You almost feel as if you’re watching your own funeral,” Jeter said. “People are telling you great things, and they’re showing highlights and reflecting. I understand that my baseball career is over with. But people are giving you well wishes like you’re about to die. I’ve appreciated it all, but internally it feels like part of you is dying, and I guess that’s true because the baseball side, it’s over with.”
Jeter detested the term “farewell tour,” believing that it made his final pass through the schedule somehow more important than the outcome of the games, but in this case, that was true. The Yankees had been officially eliminated from contention one day earlier, so this would mark the second time in 2,745 career games that Jeter took the field with his club mathematically eliminated from the postseason. Once Jeter cleaned out his locker for the final time, it would mark the official end of the “Core Four,” a vaunted group that celebrated World Series titles in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and then again in 2009 after helping to open the glittering $2.3 billion cathedral that sat across East 161st Street from the original.
The phrase “Core Four” always struck Jeter as discordant. Bernie Williams had been as important to the success of the 1996–2000 dynasty, Jeter would argue, arriving before the celebrated quartet of Jeter, left-hander Andy Pettitte, catcher Jorge Posada, and right-hander Mariano Rivera. Williams made his big-league debut in 1991, and the sensitive, guitar-strumming switch-hitter had been seemingly excluded from the catch-phrase only because his playing career ended three years before the Core scored their rings for the thumb by defeating the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2009 World Series.
In May 2015, the Yankees’ Fab Five reunited for Bernie Williams Day in the Bronx. From left: Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Williams, and Derek Jeter. (© Arturo Pardavila III)
The intensely passionate Posada had been the first of the Core to hang up his gear, announcing his retirement after a trying 2011 season when he lost his job as the starting catcher and was transitioned into a designated hitter while occasionally clashing with Girardi. Rivera’s exit had been a league-wide source of celebration during the 2013 campaign, with the all-time saves leader returning from a catastrophic knee injury sustained while shagging batting practice fly balls at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium.
It had been Girardi’s idea to send Jeter and Pettitte to the mound on the evening of September 26, 2013, retrieving the baseball from Rivera for the final time. When Jeter told his longtime teammate, “Time to go,” Rivera hid his tears by burying his face into Pettitte’s right shoulder. Pettitte could sympathize with those emotions. He had recently announced his retirement for the second time and ended his career two days later with a complete game victory over the Astros in Houston, about a half hour from his home in Deer Park, Texas.
Because those two exits stood as the most memorable moments of an otherwise unremarkable 2013 Yankees season, Jeter sensed that his departure was approaching. Jeter had dealt with a catastrophic injury of his own, having shattered his left ankle while chasing a ground ball in the 12th inning of Game 1 of the 2012 American League Championship Series. It was an injury attributed to the repeated cortisone injections that had kept the captain on the field in the second half of that season.
Though Jeter could not have suspected it at the time, that 6–4 loss to the Tigers marked the final game of his illustrious postseason career. He had spent an entire extra season in October: 158 playoff games against the sport’s best teams and pitchers, in which Jeter batted .308 with a .374 on-base percentage and a .465 slugging percentage, collecting 200 hits, 20 homers, 61 RBIs and 18 steals—and those numbers don’t even quantify feats like the iconic “Flip Play” that turned around Game 3 of the 2001 American League Division Series, helping the Yanks recover from an 0–2 series deficit against the Athletics.
In a hint of the publishing aspirations that would mark the beginning of his post-playing career, Jeter bypassed the traditional media in order to announce his own retirement on a Wednesday afternoon in February 2014. Having spent the previous evening personally crafting his message, Jeter clicked the “post” button on a 735-word Facebook announcement that created a seismic ripple throughout the game.
“The one thing I always said to myself was that when baseball started to feel more like a job, it would be time to move forward,” Jeter wrote.
Playing shortstop for the Yankees had been Jeter’s dream since his days as a Little Leaguer in Kalamazoo, Michigan—he’d announced as much to his fourth-grade classmates—and he had achieved close to every personal and professional goal that he had set. Other thoughts were beginning to enter Jeter’s mind. His sister, Sharlee, had recently given birth to a son, Jalen, who would steal the show of Jeter’s final home game when television cameras caught the adorable toddler tipping his “RE2PECT” cap in his uncle’s direction.
That introduction to family life stirred new aspirations for a man who was perennially regarded as one of Manhattan’s most eligible bachelors. To the approval of his longtime teammates, the idea of marriage was finally on the table. “There was always hope,” Rivera had joked. By the summer of 2016, Jeter had tied the knot with Sports Illustra
ted supermodel Hannah Davis; the couple would welcome a daughter, Bella Raine, in August 2017.
Throughout his playing career, Jeter frequently voiced his desire to secure an ownership role with a Major League Baseball team. His years playing under the late George M. Steinbrenner had instilled a desire to be the one calling the shots; if and when that opportunity ever came, Jeter said he intended to use some (but not all) of the leadership traits employed by “The Boss” during his tumultuous reign over the game’s most valuable franchise.
In a twist, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria—a New York art dealer who, less than three years later, would agree to sell his franchise to a group involving Jeter for $1.2 billion—happened to be among the 48,613 clutching tickets for that final Yankees home game of the 2014 season, with the playoff-bound Orioles in town to wrap the regular season. South Florida was a dream for another day; for now, Jeter needed to get through nine more innings without his frazzled nerves going completely haywire.
Jeter made his way through the clubhouse, which was hidden underneath the field level seats on the first-base side. At 30,000 square feet, it is the largest in all of baseball—2½ times larger than its predecessor across the street—so massive that Jeter once got lost in April 2009 while trying to return to his locker from the dining area. In the players’ plush dressing area, Jeter’s assigned locker sat on prime real estate, to the right of a double-doored exit that was off limits to the reporters covering the team. That allowed for a quick escape whenever necessary.
The Yankees are perhaps the most closely chronicled team in baseball, with numerous “beat” reporters attached to their home and road games. In Jeter’s final season, outlets regularly covering the team included the Bergen Record, Journal News, Newsday, New York Daily News, New York Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, plus representatives from ESPNDeportes.com, ESPNNewYork.com, MLB.com, and WFAN radio. That did not even include the host of Japanese outlets tracking the careers of outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and right-handed pitcher Hiroki Kuroda, both of whom were on the team at that time.
Suffice it to say that Jeter was accustomed to being interrupted by an eager questioner at some point during his daily ritual. Entering the clubhouse, he would usually set a venti Red Eye—black coffee with an extra shot of espresso and two sugars—on a shelf of his locker, then dole out a few minutes of his time to the press. Jeter had started his Starbucks addiction a few years prior with sugary Frappuccinos, but now joked that he was slowly but surely turning into his father, Charles. He’d then sling a pair of athletic socks over his shoulder and begin the task of getting dressed for batting practice.
Jeter believed that he had seen it all by this time, but even he was taken aback when he turned the corner from the team’s kitchenette and was greeted by a pack of more than 100 media members, all there to chronicle his every move. Dealing out an assortment of clichés with an extremely short shelf life—“My feelings are, I hope the rain stops,” was one—proved a simple task compared to what took place when the media was finally booted from the clubhouse two hours before game time. On behalf of the players, pitcher CC Sabathia presented Jeter with a painting and a gold watch. Jeter had to shift his gaze toward the ceiling, so overcome with emotion that he dared not make eye contact.
“Again, I almost lost it, and I had to turn away from them in order not to,” Jeter said. “At that point, I wasn’t sure how effective I was going to be in the game.”
Despite threatening forecasts, the dark skies gave way to a blue and orange panorama, setting up a crisp and clear evening that reminded of October—and that was an atmosphere in which Jeter was right at home. Taking the field for the top of the first inning, chants of “DE-REK JE-TER” rang out at deafening decibels, prompting Jeter to take a deep breath and stare into his glove––a future Hall of Famer transformed into a frightened Little Leaguer.
“I was honestly out there saying, ‘Please don’t hit it to me, because I don’t know what’s going to happen,’” Jeter said. “To be honest with you, I don’t know how I played this game. I went up my first at-bat, I forgot my elbow guard. I was throwing balls away. I was giving signs to [infielder Stephen] Drew on who should cover second base on a steal, and there was no runner on first. I was all messed up.”
The end of an era. Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Mariano Rivera were the first trio of teammates in MLB, NFL, NBA, or NHL history to have played together in sixteen seasons. (© Lawrence Fung)
Jeter’s muscle memory responded. He turned on a 95-mph fastball from Baltimore right-hander Kevin Gausman in the first inning, pelting the left-field wall for a double, and knocked home a go-ahead run in the seventh inning on a broken-bat ground ball that shortstop J.J. Hardy threw away for an error. As far as Jeter was concerned, he would have been satisfied if the story ended right there. The top of the eighth produced another chant from the bleachers: “THANK YOU, JE-TER,” which was acknowledged with a wave of the shortstop’s glove. Jeter’s eyes moistened.
A season of league-wide tributes to retiring shortstop Derek Jeter culminated with the longtime Yankees captain's final home game on Sept. 25, 2014. (© Lawrence Fung)
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘What are you thanking me for? I was just trying to do my job,’” Jeter said. “Really, they’re the ones I want to thank. They’re the ones that have made this special.”
There had been a healthy amount of discussion amongst team employees about how to best orchestrate Jeter’s departure from the field, and in fact, there was a plan in place. Longtime equipment manager Rob Cucuzza produced the winner, suggesting that Jeter take a celebratory lap around the stadium’s warning track. In the final turn, he would have been joined by Pettitte, Posada, Rivera, Williams, Tino Martinez, Gerald Williams, and Joe Torre, who would have escorted Jeter down the dugout steps and into retirement.
“We were going to make him walk around the whole field,” Girardi said. “And then when he got to the left-field corner, that group was going to walk out—the Posadas, the Torres, the Mos. They were going to wait for him at home plate, let him walk off into the tunnel––basically saying, ‘It’s time to join us.’”
Relief pitcher David Robertson altered the blueprint in the ninth inning, surrendering long home runs to Adam Jones and Steve Pearce that erased what had been a 5–2 Yankees lead. Standing at shortstop, Jeter slumped his head ever so briefly in disbelief, and the scramble was on to complete Jeter’s Bronx tale on a more appropriate note.
“Pretty much the all-time low to all-time high,” Robertson said. “I think back to when Derek got his 3,000th hit [on July 9, 2011]; I came in in the eighth inning and gave up the lead, and then he came up in the eighth inning and drove in a run to take the lead. So jokingly, Mo slaps me on the back and says, ‘Hey, you’re the best setup man in the league, you set him up again.’ That’s what kind of guy he is. But it was a really hard outing to take at first.”
In the visiting dugout, Orioles manager Buck Showalter summoned Evan Meek, a right-handed reliever who had been selected as a National League All-Star with the Pirates in 2011. Meek had managed a 5.48 ERA through his first twenty-two games for Baltimore, and he was unwittingly making the final appearance of a six-year career in the majors.
Jose Pirela, a twenty-four-year-old utility man playing in one of his seven games for New York that season, greeted Meek with a line drive to left field that found turf for a single. With rosters swelled to forty players by September call-ups, Girardi signaled for the speedy Antoan Richardson to run for Pirela. In an indication of the state of the Yanks’ farm system, Richardson was a thirty-year-old non-prospect who would not appear in the majors after 2014.
Brett Gardner dropped a sacrifice bunt that advanced Richardson to second base, and the crowd voiced an ecstatic roar as the late Bob Sheppard’s voice echoed throughout Yankee Stadium for the final time in a game situation. Through the magic of a recording loaded into the facility’s state-of-the-art soundboard, Sheppard intoned in his clear, concise, and correct
manner: “Now batting for the Yankees, Number 2, Derek Jeter. Number 2.”
Jeter crouched near the dugout, removed the weight from his black Louisville Slugger P72 and applied a healthy slick of pine tar to the handle. It was the same model of bat he’d once selected in Florida as a lanky, homesick eighteen-year-old, believing that the thirty-four-inch, thirty-two-ounce build of northern white ash was similar to the aluminum bats he’d been swinging a few months earlier at Kalamazoo Central High School. Jeter never used a different model in a big-league game, and the appreciative company had renamed the P72 in his honor one day prior.
As Jeter took a practice cut outside the batter’s box, fidgeting with the protective guard on his left elbow, Showalter surveyed the scene. With one out and slow-footed catcher Brian McCann waiting on deck, the Orioles could have walked Jeter to set up a potential double play. Showalter sniffed at the idea. How could he take the bat out of Jeter’s hands? Showalter had been Jeter’s first major league manager in 1995, inviting the twenty-one-year-old to travel with the team as a non-active player for the postseason, allowing Jeter and Posada to gain valuable experience by watching from the bench for that year’s epic five-game American League Division Series against the Mariners.
“We said, ‘They can go back to instructional league or whatever, or they can stay here with us, but we don’t want to hear about them running the streets and not taking this real seriously, not soaking up everything,’” Showalter said. “I found out later that they basically didn’t leave the hotel for three weeks. They were scared to death.”
Showalter had settled for watching the dynasty develop from the outside, having been dismissed by George Steinbrenner shortly after surly veteran Jack McDowell surrendered a season-ending hit to Edgar Martinez. Maybe history would have played out differently had Showalter known that Rivera, his twenty-five-year-old Panamanian right-hander, would eventually become the game’s all-time saves leader. Showalter had pondered that alternate outcome many times over the years since.