The Way It Was, And The Way It Should Still Be: Good-bye Captain!

Sitting in my living room on a couch with rain pouring outside my window, I watched as Derek Jeter marched out to shortstop for the very last time. Sitting to my right was someone who has no interest in the game of baseball. When the Yankee Stadium crowd roared for his presence, my guest turned to me and said “I’m going to miss him.” Think about that. No interest in baseball. No investment in the game or the Yankees, but they’ll miss Jeter. That is how much he has meant to sports as a whole. Very few times does a superstar put his own accomplishments aside, and put the team and the sport ahead of all else.

Thursday night’s game was meaningless. The Yankees aren’t going to the playoffs, and this has been a miserable year to watch. But we had the feeling that this was going to be something special and if the night ended with just an RBI double and a fluke play leading to an RBI, it would’ve been prefect. After David Robertson blew the save, I didn’t scream or want to pull my hair out, because the game quite simply didn’t matter. But I turned to my family and said “This is baseball. Watch how this game ends. It’s nothing short of amazing.” Without fail, Jeter came through, and I lost my voice from screaming and the outpouring of emotion that one game in a lost season brought out was spectacular.

On a night that included an exciting Thursday Night Football match-up between the New York Giants and Washington Redskins, all of Twitter was abuzz about the Captain lining a patented opposite field single for a walk-off knock. That was a Hollywood movie, and if I watched it in the theaters, I’d laugh and say “Really cheesy movie!” It was perfect! I’ll sit here now and thank David Robertson for blowing that save, because it gave me that moment. It’s selfish but I don’t care. We needed that moment. Jeter’s career at Yankee Stadium could not end with a three-out save. I’m sorry but there would’ve been something missing. That walk off single made me happy. It was beautiful, and that one moment was worth watching this awful season.

Truth be told, I probably won’t watch the Red Sox series coming up. The only one I may watch is the game Masahiro Tanaka starts, and that’s only because he’s my soul mate (That’s funny and if you didn’t laugh I’m mad at you). I’m ready to sit back and enjoy the fall and the winter. I’m ready to sit back, lounge on the couch with my hot coffee, pajamas and the Knicks on my TV and relax. I honestly don’t relax during the summer because the season takes a toll on me. The winter, with free agency and rumors and all that, isn’t much better, but it isn’t as stressful as the season can be. I’m ready to check out and my final memory of this season was going to be a bad one. Thank you Captain for making my winter so much better because that game will be the most perfect memory of the 2014 season.

More from Yankees News

• Yankees chose worst possible player to ring in New Year on 2023 team calendar
• Yankees make upside play, sign former Rangers top prospect outfielder
• Michael Kay’s Anthony Volpe story will get Yankees fans amped for Opening Day
• No, Yankees should not acquire Trevor Bauer for 2023
• Yankees’ Marwin González replaces Red Sox LF in Japan in logical next step

Were I to hand Steven Spielberg a script about a career like Jeter’s, he’d tell me it has no edge. It’s too perfect to even make a movie about. For me, a younger fan, most of Jeter’s best moments happened before I knew what baseball was. But I could live 150 years and I’d still talk about the memories he brought me. The first pack of baseball cards I bought had a Derek Jeter card in it. The first jersey I owned as a young kid was a Derek Jeter jersey.

I didn’t see a championship until 2009, but I knew Derek Jeter and I loved Derek Jeter. I went through school and made the decision to be a good person and do the right thing and I think a large part of that is due to the example Jeter set for me. To say something about recent hate (Olberman I’m looking at you!) Jeter isn’t who he is purely based off of of statistics. Any one of us could be put in Jeter’s shoes and screw up royally. I could be the Yankees shortstop for one day and you’d hear at least three stories about me doing something stupid. Boy, I’d probably slam into a wall and get hurt before the end of the first series.

Derek Jeter has been an example to everyone and no, he’s not the best player in history, but he has been a great player and a great human being for so many years. Very few people have become exactly what they set out to be, and Derek Jeter did just that. He did just that, and he took us all along for the ride. I hope that I accomplish a fraction of what Jeter has, and I can only pray that I am a fraction of the person Jeter has been. Goodbye Captain!