Yankees Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter are exchanging places in history
The New York Yankees have their pantheon of heroes, each with a singular legacy. But two of those Yankees—Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez—are in the shocking process of swapping narratives.
New York Yankees greats usually write their final legacy with their last at-bats. Fans and observers had every reason to think just that when A-Rod and Jeter each closed their long-running shows in New York with their memorable moments.
For Derek, that meant going out the winner he always was. That final night at Yankees Stadium, his last playing shortstop, was even better than many remember.
Derek didn’t just show up to save the day in the bottom of the ninth. Instead, he put his imprimatur on the game from the beginning. In his first AB, with the Yankees already down by two to Baltimore, Jeter ripped a double to left center, scoring the speedy Brett Gardner from first.
This was always one of Jeets best yet least recognized skills: Helping the team score its first run after the other team scores first. I believe but do not have the time to prove that Derek was involved with more such plays than any contemporary.
I want to prove this, I really do, but my wife keeps an overnight bag by the door just in case I ever start the research.
Prove it All Night
It was like that all night. With the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the seventh, Jeter was both lucky and good. He managed to reach first safely due to an error, sending Ichiro Suzuki and Jose Pirela home; that made it 4-2 Yankees.
And of course, he was granted one more gift from the gods—#Respect—when they allowed the Orioles to tie the score off of RHP David Robertson in the top of the ninth.
Because in the final frame, Pirela dribbled a seeing-eye single to left to lead off, and, after Gardy sacrifice bunted him to second, Jeter collected only the tenth walk-off of his career (including home runs). Mobbing ensued.
Derek played his final three games in Boston as a DH, but this was his last game at Yankee Stadium. No one who saw it, and the commercials melting cheddar all over him, could ever forget.
Oh What a Night it Was, It Really Was
The night was a final confirmation of things we already knew.
Jeter wasn’t just on winning teams, he was the winner who helped drive those teams. And while his pal Johnny Damon might have been captain caveman for a while, Jeter proved he was always Captain Clutch.
It cemented the love between Jeter and Yankees fans forever everywhere more than any monument. As he walked off that night holding dirt from the shortstop hole in his hand, the fans just knew this love affair was going to go on forever.
They looked ahead to Jeter’s immediate emeritus status and how he was going to be the father of the next generation. He would follow in the footsteps of so many Yankees legends to help raise the next group of Baby Bombers.
He was going to be in Spring Training every year, a captain’s lunch always on the menu. Fans would see him at the Stadium throughout each season, and his ubiquitous presence would be an umbrella providing comfort through good times and bad.
Have the Yankees to go through a rebuild? That’s okay because they can look at the owner’s box to see Jeter standing there, the patron saint of winning, and gain hope for a new shining city on the hill.
Alex Rodriguez, meanwhile, had a wholly different but utterly appropriate ending.
The Heart of the Matter
Jeter, meanwhile, has become a villain in baseball. For those of you over thirty, read that again. Surreal, right?
His well-known reticence to share his thoughts now makes him look like a shadowy figure out to ruin a franchise to enrich himself. Now, that’s not true, but it is the narrative. And I expect him to lead their rebuild. But some comments once made tend to leave a mark.
However, even if that image is modified over the next twenty years, Yankees fans of the future will see him differently.
Jeter is no longer primarily a Yankee; he is first and foremost a Marlin. And he should be. It would be wrong if his current and future loyalties were not 99.9% with the team he partially owns.
Of course, he will never stop being a Yankees Hall of Famer. And he might even show up for an Old Timers’ Day or two. But the Captain’s Camps he will attend from now on will be with Marlin’s players, not Yankees’ youngsters.
He will not appear with any regularity in the Bronx; he needs to be in Miami. From now on his presence will be akin to that of any of the other monumented Yankees who no longer appear in person, guys like Ruth, Mantle, and Steinbrenner.
Jeter is already becoming a ghost of championships past.
And that might change if his team ever defeats the Yankees in the World Series. He might become a real Yankees’ villain then.
Living Proof
But not so A-Rod. Twenty years from now will see him established as one of the voices of baseball. And a humble man who accepts praise as one of the best minds in the game deferentially.
More importantly here, his relationship with the Yankees looks like it will keep becoming more intimate and influential. And so it will be he who appears at Spring Trainings, and who helps shepherd the next waves of Yankees stars.
It is his face that Yankees fans will see most often in the owner’s box. And it is Alex Rodriguez they will see riding with the owner’s and advisers for the next thirteen championship rides down the Canyon of Heroes over that time.
I know some of you will have something to say about that in the comments section.
Imagine; That was an Easy One
Imagine it, though. It is 2039. The Yankees are celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of their 2009 World Series. As they announce the players, who would receive the biggest applause? It could be Jeter. He did a lot more to help the Yankees win a championship than Alex.
That thinking, however, might also be time out of mind by then.
A-Rod might very well be the bright smiling forever face of the Nineties’ Yankees, and one of the most well-liked men in the game. It is most probable, for instance, that not getting into the Hall will only make him more sympathetic by then.
He will be the flawed man, the man who found redemption. And the man who powered that 2009 team to the World Series.
That sympathy, along with his own #Respect for his brilliant work as a baseball analyst, and by then lifetime commitment to the Yankees, will elevate him perhaps past Jeterian status.
Of course, the most ironic part of it is that these men are swapping roles doing precisely what they did as players.