#RE2PECT: Jeter's Final Game In Pinstripes

The Promise

One day short of a year before this moment, a promise was made. A year ago, on September 26, 2013, as Mariano Rivera shed his tears on the mound of Yankee Stadium for the last time, I shed mine watching my team as I have thousands of times before.

My team.

Jorge. Andy. Mo.

And Derek Jeter.

I’ll admit I’ve been a spoiled Yankees fan. With rare exceptions, I didn’t pencil in October baseball – it came printed on the calendar. And we’ve all been blessed to grow up watching a dynasty of players, the likes of which we couldn’t appreciate at the time because, quite frankly, it’s all we’ve ever known. We still can’t REALLY appreciate it.  Not yet.

But we all felt it. And the only thing worse than saying goodbye to Mo on TV was not saying goodbye to him in person.

My sister founded the Church of Pinstripes in my family. She’s the reason I bleed Yankee blue, the reason I’ve frozen my butt off in the upper deck of playoff games, and the reason I’ve thawed out in Tampa for Spring Training. She’s a Derek Jeter fan.

So, that night, even as we watched Mo cry from our respective homes, we agreed: When it was time to say goodbye to The Captain, we would be doing it in The Bronx.

Part of me thought – well, hoped – that day would never come.  I never thought it would arrive less than a year later.

The Pregame

 

It always rains on me at Yankee Stadium, you know. What the forecast predicted, however, wasn’t rain. It was monsoons. The kind you should build an arc for. We didn’t build an arc. We just packed in layers of ponchos and jackets and umbrellas. I learned to swim before I could read, so I wasn’t worried about the rain. I WAS worried about tickets.

I won’t tell you about my internal panic or my external tears in Babe Ruth Plaza or how I pretty much was ready to trade anything for a ticket when it got to be 6:15 on Thursday, September 25, and I was still outside Gate 4.

And then something crazy happened to the predicted monsoons: They turned into cotton candy pink skies and a rainbow over the House that Jeter Built. Literally. LITERALLY. We should’ve known for sure right then that the fairytale ending was put into action.

I’ll be honest – I was anxious. More than nervous, less than scared, somewhere in that space where I never considered that we wouldn’t actually find tickets yet all of a sudden we were a half hour from game time and still hoping for a miracle.

Tickets did get released on Ticketmaster. My fingers weren’t fast enough to capture the made up words they wanted me to type in, but I saw them. Game day tickets also dropped for sale at the Stadium ticket window. Saw those too, as the guy in front of me snagged the last pair.  At that point, I was ready to pay whatever necessary to get inside before Jeter’s final roll call. It had to be 6:35 at that point – half hour til game time.

But here’s the miracle: My sister wouldn’t allow me to sell my hair or a kidney to see Jeter’s last game. We’re Yankees. And Yankees don’t panic. They play it cool and wait it out before swooping in to get what they want. I can't say we were that cool, but we were lucky. Remember the guy in front of me with that last pair of tickets? A little Cashman-style negotiation and those tickets became ours. Not for free, of course, but it didn’t cost me any vital organs either.

It was 6:51 when we entered Gate 6.

The Game

Our seats were perfect once we got to them, but with barely fifteen minutes to move across half of a sold-out Yankee Stadium, I was out of breath by the time I slipped into position just before the final roll call of 2014 started.  

You can find me above a left field sign in the Main Level, right on the fair side of the foul pole. First row, perfect view of the shortstop (position and player) and clear vantage into the dugout. Sure, the Legends seats would've been nice, but, the way things turned out, I think we had the best seats in the house.
 

Of course, with two quick home runs in the top of the 1^st inning, roll call got a little bit disrupted by, you know, a GAME to play. Still, the Last First “DE-REK JE-TER” chants earned The Captain’s cap tip, and the electricity of the crowd surged. 

And that's how it started. Every time #2 took the field, you wondered if it was the last time you'd be staring at that number in pinstripes. Then came his final error, in the top of the 2nd - glad we got that "last" out of the way early! His last double play came in the 3rd...but only after a review.

Jeter’s last first at-bat brought a ball to deep left field – near where we were sitting – and stopped just short of the wall to become Jeter’s Last Yankee Stadium Extra Base Hit. The middle innings brought us his final ground out and his last strike out in pinstripes. Those aren’t the ones we want to remember, but they’re history nonetheless.

And in between, the chants of “DE-REK JE-TER” got louder, morphing into “THANK YOU CAP-TAIN,” then various combinations of whatever we, as a crowd, felt like shouting. It created noise that, while not even close to being in unison, was unmistakable in its message.

If you watched it at home, you saw what was evident even from the left field stands in Row 1 of Section 233a. You saw our captain breathing out emotion, shaking off tears, quickly acknowledging the moments with a wave or a tip of the hat, as if to remind us that he loved us, but he still had a job to do.

Finally, looking at the scoreboard in the 7^th inning, I started to understand what was happening. It was ending. All the excitement, all the nostalgia, all the celebration leading up to these final moments. Not just in one night, but the entire season, and in the seasons before it as we said goodbye to our Dynasty Team.

 

When Bernie and O’Neill disappeared from the outfield.

When Joe Torre left. When Jorge said goodbye.

When Andy and Mo decided it was time to walk away.

I tried to take in every flavor of the moment, knowing I wanted to remember how perfect the autumn night felt – a breeze waving the Jeter flags around the facade, the coolness reminiscent of post-season nights. The Stadium rumbled with the start of every chant, the cheers erupting as each video tribute played in gratitude for Derek Jeter.  One of these moments – his next hit, his next play, the next half of the inning – would be his last.

My sister calculated it around the same time – a final at-bat in the 7^th or 8^th would give Joe the opportunity to stage the moment that brought us all to this shrine of baseball, as long as we could get a lead. The moment we all wanted to witness, even if we would’ve happily delayed it for a season or ten if Jeter just…changed his mind.

The 7^th inning started with a passed ball on a strikeout. Then a walk. And a single on a bunt. And all of a sudden, the bases were loaded when Bob Sheppard’s voice echoed over the crowd, it, too, set to retire with the number 2.

We all watched Jeter at the plate, set against a background of cameras flashing and fans on their feet, as they have been for 20 years. With that signature swing, bat touches ball, and Jeter scores those go-ahead runs, not on a hit, but on an error. His final reach on an error at Yankee Stadium, and no one was complaining about how he got to 1^st Base. We were just happy he was there.

The 8^th inning buzzed, and the chants continued. Jeter squatted, Jeter looked around, Jeter stood, alone, the centerpiece of Yankee Stadium. Heading into the final inning with a 5-2 lead, the video tributes to Jeter stopped. This time it was Jeter’s tribute – his favorite Yankee memory.

You may have seen it – Jeter talking about winning, about the championships he’s given us, about being there, on the field, for the final out. And HIS final out was coming. In moments.

The crowd was on their feet, applauding, chanting, and, yes, crying. All anticipating Joe's trot out to give Jeter his moment. Except he didn't. Not before the first out. Not after, when the walked lead off batter put a double play on the table, threatening to eliminate Jeter's chance to be taken out of the game with ceremony.

And then Robertson dealt a pitch that nearly ended in my lap. And that is NOT an exaggeration. The Adam Jones home run bounced not three feet away from me. And yes, like an idiot, I lunged for it…even though I had a camera in both hands.

Well, that eliminated the double play, and the crowd knew it. We still had a lead…for about four minutes before a second ball landed in the left field stands (this one out of my reach), tying the game…and making the perfectly staged ending for Derek Jeter a bit more unpredictable.

And yet, maybe, because it’s Jeter, we should’ve expected it all along.

The Moment

Going back to Jeter’s favorite memory, I thought about him being on the field for the final out. I thought about how Jeter probably didn’t want to be taken out until the game was won. He might’ve done it for us, still chanting his name, but that’s not what he would’ve scripted for himself. What actually happened?

It was about as “Jeter” as you can get.

With a tie score in the bottom of the 9^th, close to 50,000 people in the stands – and everyone else watching wherever you were – knew the same thing: there was a very good chance Jeter was getting another at-bat.

It started with Jose Pirela’s single to left, a rookie who debuted less than a week ago. I started praying again around that time, just hoping for a scenario that did not jeopardize this win for Derek Jeter. This game HAD to be a Yankees Classic, I HAD to be able to relive it in perpetuity at random times on YES Network, and as we all know, the good guys always win those Yankee Classics.

Bob Sheppard’s voice could just barely be heard this time as #2 stepped up to the plate following Brett Gardner’s successful sac bunt. I clenched my grasp on two cameras, bit my lip through our crowd chanting and just…waited.

First pitch to The Captain, the bat hit the ball and jetted into right field. The initial swell of cheers and screaming came as Jeter touched 1^st Base. We were all so preoccupied by our hero, I think much of the crowd – for just a moment – didn’t realize that pinch-runner Richardson was still making his way around the bases.

Then came the second round of screaming, as Richardson slid across home plate, scoring the winning run. Players poured onto the field. Jeter flew in celebration. The crowd literally shook the stands below me, and the adrenaline kept vibrating like the heartbeat of Yankees Universe. There was no taking Derek Jeter out of a game. Somehow, he did it HIS way.

We didn’t know where to look except to watch what was happening, and then we all realized what was happening at the same time.  There, waiting to celebrate and welcome him into their immortality, was our Dynasty Team.

Joe Torre remained composed as he watched his baseball son. Andy, Jorge, and Mo –three of the Core Four - stood in their Yankee jackets, Jorge giving a playful smile, while Tino and Bernie joined the lineup of proud older Yankee brothers.

Jeter didn’t notice them at first, and who could blame him. The moment was brighter than even he could’ve expected, than any of us could’ve, and he was surrounded by the bedlam of his teammates. The end of a game. The end of a season. The end of an era.

The group stood in a composed line, and as their faces appeared on the scoreboard, the audience cheers, somehow, got even louder. That line, and the mob just a few yards from it somewhere around second base, put it all into perspective. Twenty years of celebrations for Derek Jeter culminated just as he moved into a new role.

I know I wasn’t the only one flashing back to October nights – and sometimes November ones - seeing those faces on the field together again. We’re not just losing a player – we’re losing our final connection to those glory days. As much as things have changed in 20 years, Jeter had been our constant.

When Jeter finally did notice his brothers, and then his family, anything that had been on his shoulders released. We’ve seen that smile for two decades, but this one was different. This time, his joy matched ours for all the same reasons. As his voice took over the Stadium saying all the right things, it really began to sting as reality set in.

 




Derek took a couple of laps around the field, tipping his cap as we refused to stop chanting his name. He stopped at his shortstop home, giving us one final chance to brand that image into our memories. 
 









What seems so clear now, in this moment, will give way to stories and misremembered details, but that is an image I won't forget. A man, saying goodbye to the piece of himself that has been there since he was a child: the dream come true that almost never does but, for him, did.

The Legend

Yankee Stadium will never be the same, but I’m glad my final memories of Derek Jeter unfolded as they did. Caps lay on the warning track in tribute to The Captain. The shortstop dirt was raked into bucket after bucket, presumably by Steiner for all your memorabilia needs.   The stands remained loud and in love as the man spoke to us from the centerfield screen from the press conference, repeatedly thanking us for thanking him. The loudest cheer came when he announced that he had played his final game at shortstop because it meant that memory was preserved, forever, in Yankee Stadium.

Never again will we see a single digit in pinstripes, never again will we hear Bob Sheppard’s voice as a batter enters the box, never again will we watch Derek Jeter on the field.

My generation should remember the appearance of “Babe Ruth” to Benny “the Jet” Rodriguez in “The Sandlot.” When our grandkids remake the movie, it’ll be Derek Jeter coming to them in a dream, but the sentiment will be the same:

“Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die.”

Derek Jeter is both.

The ironic thing about Jeter’s last Yankee Stadium game is that it was the first that he played in that meant nothing in the standings. In TWENTY YEARS OF PLAYING, the only “meaningless” game Jeter played while wearing pinstripes was the one that meant EVERYTHING to me and millions of Yankee fans - to millions of BASEBALL fans.

Thank you, Derek Jeter. Thank you for making sure every single game meant something.