Derek Jeter stared into this frozen, bronze image of himself, a slightly awkward smile creasing a face that’s a bit rounder than it was back in his prime playing days, crinkling the corners of eyes that carry a bit more luggage these days, too. Anyone would have to find it strange to catch their own reflection staring back at them the way Jeter looked at his Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, etched forever on a Monument Park plaque, bound forever to hang in the mini-museum behind the Stadium’s center-field fence.
So Jeter did his best to stifle the laugh he felt upon official unveiling of the permanent reminder to the retirement of his No. 2 jersey, noting later that it was meant not to convey dissatisfaction with the rendering of his face, but rather relief that it was a likeness he could live with.
“We were laughing because when Bernie had his, he had the big mole,” Jeter said, revealing some of the locker room subterfuge his former manager Joe Torre had only just earlier insisted was one of Jeter’s best kept secrets from Yankee life. Even here, years after he would take the field alongside the likes of Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada or Andy Pettitte (three of the many former teammates who took part in Sunday’s celebration), Jeter wouldn’t, or couldn’t, hold back from landing a few well-placed barbs.
“Jorge had the big ears, Andy had the big nose. I was happy with mine.”
Sticking to the emotional script written across the long, glorious expanse of his Yankee career, Jeter managed to deflect the deeper side of his emotional soul, maintaining the singular brand of cool that came to define his pinstriped life, going for humor when tears threatened to move in, hitting just the right note in his on-field speech to the sold-out stands.
“Playing here in New York for 20 years, I learned that time flies, memories fade but family is forever,” Jeter said. “I’ll be eternally grateful to be part of the Yankee family. I can’t thank you guys enough.”
He’d shared his most revealing moment of the night only moments before, when he repeated a question that had been asked of him in a recent interview, whether he would trade places with anyone in history, and if so, who would it be.
“I say this very humbly, there isn’t a person or player that I would trade places with that’s playing now or ever,” Jeter said on the field, only steps away from the spray-painted No. 2 added along the first-base line (with a twin down third base), his royal blue three-piece suit joining in concert with the fading blue skies that stayed rain-free just for him. “The reason why I say that is because I got a chance to play for a first-class organization, and in front of the greatest fans in the history of sports.”
That Jeter belongs in Monument Park was a well-deserved, non-debatable foregone conclusion. That he represents the final link to one of the most amazing chapters of Yankee history is a reminder of how fast it all goes by. That he surrounded himself not only with the grandmother and parents who raised him to become the man he is, or the sister and nephew who always have his back, but also with his own wife Hannah and the baby they are expecting in the coming months is evidence of how much life goes on, how the fresh-faced kid who crashed the late-season Yankee party in 1995 and made a full-time championship entrance in 1996 has grown up before our eyes.
And what he did across those two decades in pinstripes was the story everyone wanted to celebrate Sunday, how a kid who never had the strongest arm or the fastest bat or the quickest feet could manage to put it all together and become not simply the best player on his team, but one of the franchise’s all-time greats. Jeter was always more than the sum of his parts, a collection of talent, desire, fortitude and skill that elevated him beyond whatever physical gifts he had, a combination of El Capitan leadership skills and Mr. November clutch abilities that left others trailing in his wake. The youngest of the famous Core Four, Jeter never left any doubt he would be the one to lead them all.
“We’d have guys come in and a few months later being here, I’d have them come up to me and say ‘I knew he was a good player but I never realized how good he was,’ ” Torre said. “There’s so much about him that doesn’t show up in the stats. He wasn’t the most talented player, both offensively and defensively, but for some reason, you wanted the ball hit to him and you wanted him to be at the plate. He never disappointed.”
He did it with unwavering belief in his skill and unnatural calm under pressure.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of flash about him, he wasn’t a big power hitter, he wasn’t stealing a lot of bases I guess, not one thing that stood out,” Pettitte said. “He was just the complete package. There’s a whole lot more things you can bring to the table, not just in the field of play, the way he is in the dugout, the way he’ll pick guys up.
“I’ve said this before, there is one thing that stands out of to me on the field. I’ve played baseball for 18 years, if you ever needed a big hit in a situation and especially in the postseason, those are hard at bats to come by and hard at bats under pressure, and Derek was the absolute best at handling those, like I’d never seen anyone handle them before. Time and time again he’d come up with big hits. You can look at him season to season numbers-wise and say that nothing really stands out that’s great, but to me, he’s the greatest clutch hitter I’ve ever seen.”
From the flip play to diving in the stands, from a leadoff home run in a World Series game to a walk-off winner in his final at-bat, Jeter always put his pieces together better than the rest of them. Teammates loved him, current players revere him. Competitors respected him, managers coveted him. To look back at what he did is a lesson in making the most of what you have, to understand that it’s possible to be great at the whole thing without being the best at one single thing. Jeter was one of the best, right to his final words.
“What do you say besides thank you?” he said after the ceremony. I’ve had this special relationship with the organization and fans for years. I didn’t want to prepare a speech tonight because whenever I do, if I forget a part of it, none of it makes any sense. Literally, I didn’t know what to say besides that you. This is one of those special days that you’ll never forget. When you have this dream of playing baseball and playing for the Yankees, having your number retired is never part of it.”
Until it is.
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