Bomber Bites With Jumping Joe–Jeter Worth His Day

Derek Jeter will be celebrated today as the most accomplished and best player in Yankee history for the past quarter century.  His accolades are too superfluous to mention but let’s point out a few anyway.  He has 3449 hits, a 14 time All Star, 1996 Rookie of Year, 2000 All Star Game MVP, 2000 World Series MVP, five Gold Gloves, 5 Silver Sluggers, two Hank Aaron Awards, 71.9 career WAR, and finished in the top 10 for AL MVP eight times.  He is the most prolific postseason hitter of all time with 200 hits in October.  Mr. November was part of seven American League Pennant winners and won five rings.

The exact festivities of “Jeter Day” is being played close to the best by the Yankees.  A report early in the week stating that the Yankees were expecting to retire Jeter’s iconic number 2, was quickly debunked by the Yankees brass who insist that they will not retire the number this afternoon.  Retiring Jeter’s number 2 is inevitable so perhaps they are simply waiting until later in the season or next year to make it official.  The guest list is also unknown although once expect many of Jeter’s former teammates to be present.  The Yankees have had extensive practice at pregame ceremonies honoring former Bomber greats this season, giving Goose Gossage, Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neill plaques in Monument Park and retiring former manager Joe Torre’s number.  However, Jeter is on another plane from those others.

Mandatory Credit: Chad R. MacDonald.

Jeter is not just a Yankee great.  He is not just a key member of several championship teams.  Jeter is an all-time great baseball player.  He owns a place in the in history of the game reserved for those immortals we fans speak of in hushed tones.  Jeter is to Yankee fans in this generation what Don Mattingly was to our older brothers, Mickey Mantle to our fathers, and Joe DiMaggio to our grandfathers.  He is more than a great player, he is the symbol an icon of a generation.

The “Derek Jeter Generation” came of age at a time when the world underwent the greatest changes since World War II.  This generation saw the rise of the Internet and terrorists, they were baptized at 9/11 and saw war firsthand in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have experienced the best and worst mankind has to offer.  They are a generation that has the highest level of education and lowest level of employment in history.  A generation of instant gratification personified by Facebook, Twitter and Selfies, and yet the most hope for the future.

Then there is Derek Jeter.  Jeter is a man for all seasons.

Older generations see him as a thrown back to their previous baseball immortals of Mantle, DiMaggio, Ruth and Gehrig.  However, the current generation sees themselves in Jeter.  Jeter achieved instant success and stardom winning the World Series and Rookie of the Year in his first full season in 1996.  Then continued his success for better part of the next two decades, a constant in an ever changing world.  But in just a few short weeks, that constant will be no more.

For the first time, the Derek Jeter Generation will be without Derek Jeter.  Or will they?  To quote one of the Derek Jeter Generation’s great cult movies, The Sandlot, “Heroes live forever.  But legends never die.”