O Captain, My Captain

Derek Jeter announced via Facebook yesterday (Feb 12) that he will retire from professional  baseball after his 2014 season. Those of you that know me well know that I absolutely worshipped Jeter throughout my childhood. When I was a wee tot and just broke into the ultra-minor leagues (7-year old little league), I was placed on the Yankees, so sorry folks, I am not a Yankee hater. Quite the opposite in fact. 

My first memory of Jeter was an All-Star Game. I cannot remember which year, but I remember recognizing the famous "NY" logo on his jersey and telling my dad that it was the same as mine! Jeter must have done something amazing in that game because I was hooked. I followed his career like a hawk (as much as a 7-year old can be a hawk). I sent him birthday letters, I got his jersey for Christmas like 5 years in a row. I wanted to wear #2 at every sport (I was #2 up until junior year in high school), just to be like him. I bought his Jumpman cleats sophomore year and still wore them my summer after freshman year in college just because of the symbolism. I wanted to play shortstop. I wanted to wear the pinstripes. I wanted to be the class act that he was and play baseball on the biggest stage for a living. To prove it, here's an incredibly flattering picture of me at my 12th birthday seeing a Tigers/Yankees game: Please note the tube socks, the pinstripe jersey combined with Tigers cap, and yes, I taped his baseball card to my incredibly colorful poster. 

Say what you will about the Yankees, but no one can deny Jeter's leadership. Despite having a .312 career average, 3,316 hits going into this year, and a career on base percentage of .381, to me, the most impressive thing about him is his 5 rings, and how convincingly he won them. Excluding the World Series that they lost, in the 5 successful endeavors, the Yankees never went past 6 games, and from '98-'00, they played 13 World Series games. It takes four wins to win a ring. 12 wins = 3 rings. And they only played 13. They were one game removed from three straight sweeps. The only game they lost was Game 3 in 2000, when El Duque (Orlando Hernandez) gave up 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th to the Mets, a deficit which the Yankees could not overcome. The Yankees would hold off the Mets for the rest of that series; a series in which Jeter was the MVP. Despite striking out 8 times in 5 games, Jeter hit .409, and had a crazy on base percentage of .480. 

In his postseason career as a whole, Jeter has hit .308, racking up 200 hits and 20 home runs in 158 games, four games short of adding an entire season on to his career. 

As long as Jeter has played professional baseball, the Yankees have never had a sub .500 season. In the 18 full seasons he's had, his team has only failed to win fewer than 90 games 3 times. He is the greatest leader I know in the sports world. I wouldn't go so far as to say he is a 5-tool player naturally, but he made himself one. He averaged 16 home runs and 22 steals a season, both really solid numbers for a shortstop. He's not a power hungry guy though; he rarely struck out, and the majority of his home runs were line drive shots that just snuck over the fence (a lot of that is due to playing in a band box of Yankee Stadium, but we won't go there). 

We'll all remember "The Flip" to Jorge Posada to nab Jeremy Giambi in the 2000 ALDS. We'll all remember "The Dive" into the stands against the Red Sox in July of 2004. We'll all remember his 3,000th hit which was a moonshot to left-center, a script that you couldn't write any better: in front of his home crowd, full count, off of Cy Young winner David Price. We'll remember his father-son type relationship with Joe Torre. But here are my two favorite things about Jeter (I won't count that he grew up in Michigan):

• He never won an MVP. I will go on record and say that he is the best non-pitcher of the MVP era to have not won that award. Others that come to mind: Al Kaline, Billy Williams, and Pee Wee Reese, but these guys are nowhere near the caliber of Jeter's career. I may be putting too much weight on the rings, but again, this is my personal opinion. But why does the lack of hardware make him great? It kept him humble. It kept him hungry. It kept him focused on the real prize of winning World Series and boy did he do that. Personal glory in terms of MVP's are great, but at the end of the day, why is the baseball world rocked by Jeter's departure? Rings. Other than his Rookie of the Year, his goal was to win it all. Compare this to Miguel Cabrera or Justin Verlander (winners of the last three MVP awards), despite their personal hardware and success, if you asked them, I'd guarantee they'd prefer a single World Series over 10 MVPs.
• He stuck with one team his entire career. In this day and age, players are looking for a big contract rather than team loyalty (Josh Hamilton, Robby Cano). Sure, it's easy to stay in the same place when you're making $21 million a year, BUT he loved the Yankees enough, in that harsh of an environment, to stay there for 20 years. Again, sure, it's easy to be loved by a crowd when you hit .300 year in and year out and bring the city a championship three years in a row, BUT he refused to go anywhere but New York when his contract was up. 

I grew up with Derek Jeter. My maturity as a baseball fan coincided with his career. As often as I watched the Tigers, I would also check Jeter's line to make sure my captain got a hit. I don't mind the Yankees, and I know a lot of people hate their guts, but Jeter is an exception. Back in the days before my house had cable and I could only watch postseason baseball, I had no choice but to watch the Yankees because they were there so often and I watched, emulated, noted, appreciated, and like I said earlier, worshipped Derek Jeter.

After he retires for real after 2014, baseball will feel weird. I don't know how else to put it, it's just going to be different because he has been around the same amount of time I've been a fan. My dad would always share stories of his favorite players, Gates Brown and Denny McLain. His dad would share stories with my dad of his favorite players, Rudy York and Schoolboy Rowe. I can't wait to share my memories of Derek Jeter.