Appreciating the retired single-digit numbers of the New York Yankees
Number Two
Derek Jeter, #2 (number retired on May 14, 2017)
Since 1921, the Yankees have only had two extended stretches during which they didn’t regularly make the postseason. The first was from 1965 to 1975, between the Mickey Mantle/Whitey Ford/Yogi Berra Yankees of the 1950s and early-1960s and the Reggie Jackson/Ron Guidry/Craig Nettles teams from 1975 to 1981. The other stretch was from 1982 to 1994. The Yankees had some good players those years, like Don Mattingly and Rickey Henderson, but never made the playoffs.
Derek Jeter arrived during the 1995 season, just as that second long playoff drought ended. He only played in 15 games in 1995, but became a regular and won the AL Rookie of the Year Award in 1996. He would play 20 seasons with the Yankees and make the AL All-Star team 14 times. The Yankees won the World Series five times while Jeter was their shortstop, including three in a row from 1998 to 2000. Even though he never won a regular season MVP award, Jeter did finish in the top 10 in MVP voting eight times. He also won five (questionable) Gold Glove Awards.
The MLB.com Facebook page has “The Jeet 16,” which shows a mixture of 16 memorable moments related to Derek Jeter battling it out in a head-to-head bracket to determine the ultimate Jeter moment. The Jeet 16 runs the gamut from his Opening Day Homer in 1996 to “The Flip” versus the Oakland A’s to his record for most hits by a shortstop. The consensus among the people surveyed on that page is that “The Flip” was the iconic Jeter moment.
It was a heck of a play (not exactly Jeremy Giambi’s shining moment, though. A slide might have been a good idea). This Sunday in New York will be all-Jeter, all-day. According to this article at ESPN.com, the average price for a ticket to Jeter’s retirement game is $284, making it the best-selling game of the year for StubHub.