Yankees: Sorry Derek, but the 25 guys in the dugout own the night

The Yankees have 25 guys who own the rights to Yankee Stadium this season. In,  what almost feels. Now, like an unwanted interruption, the organization will retire their #2 jersey forever on Sunday night. But the real story will take the field to play a ballgame following the ceremonies. That’s just the way it is.

The Yankees will bend over backward on Sunday night when they conduct what is guaranteed to be “a really big show” in honor of Derek Jerek. He’s already in town and giving interviews get us all pumped up with headlines that tantalize like “My one regret as a Yankee.”

The trouble will all of it, though, is that most Yankees fans have no need to get pumped up. The 25 guys who’ll be in the dugout watching the ceremony are already doing a pretty good of that, and unlike last season, we don’t need the Yankee’s manufacturing reasons to get us excited.

We needed it last season and the season before that one. Not now. And it would have been more fitting if the organization had realized that when Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira, both teammates of Jeter, were still on the team.

As it is now, Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird, and Jordan Montgomery were all three years old when Jeter made his debut with the Yankees in 1995. To be sure, they’ll all make the obligatory confessions of adulation for Jeter when a reporter asks them a question on Sunday, and some of it will be genuine.

Following the script

But I’ll bet a year’s pay, which isn’t much so don’t get excited, that each of these young stars playing for the New York Yankees in 2017 will have their eyes glued on Jeter for the cameras while their minds are solely on the game ahead with the first-place Houston Astros.

And I’ll go further out on a limb and predict that there won’t be an empty seat in the house, and the stands will be jammed with fans, who have paid ridiculous sums of money to attend this game, only to ensure that they’ll have bragging rights at the water cooler when they return to work on Monday.

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And I further predict that ESPN will be there with their horde of cameras and reporters to snatch up a few extra points in the all-important ratings, simply by being in the right place at the right time.

And I further predict that the Yankees will trot out to welcome Jeter all of his Core Five teammates, who gave us so much, so long ago. There’ll be hugs and cheers all around for Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, and Mariano Rivera. The only remaining suspense is the order in which they’ll be announced. I’m betting on Mo as the last to be introduced.

Face it, Jeter is long gone

Is what I’m saying a bit too cynical?  Perhaps, but you have to admit that what the Yankees are doing this season makes all of the hullabaloo surrounding Jeter, at this moment, at least a bit anti-climatic.

This, added to the fact that Jeter himself has moved away from the Yankees and is currently seeking the purchase of the Miami Marlins, which is about as far away from New York as you can get unless you take a boat ride to Cuba.

And then, Jeter will disappear into his “real” life and the 25 guys in the dugout will disappear into theirs as the 2017 Yankees take the spotlight where they belong

And maybe you could say that Hal Steinbrenner could have been more forthcoming with Jeter by urging his partners, as well as himself, to sell some of their shares in the team to Jeter, giving him the opportunity to extend his legacy as a Yankee. But, for reasons we’ll never know, he didn’t. And therefore, we’ll also never know if Jeter would have accepted the offer.

Make no mistake, Derek Jeter is an iconic Yankees player, up there with the all-time greats like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and so on. But it would have been more fitting if the Yankees retired his number immediately after he played his last game as a Yankee back in October of 2014.

He went out as a winner as the video below proves. That was the time, not now. Instead, the Yankees calculated the “prime time” moment, no less on Mother’s Day, to honor Jeter. Shame on them. Still, few Yankees fans can watch this without at least a pull on their heart and maybe a tear to their eyes.

Life goes on and so does this Yankees team

And although it should be offensive to him that the organization went that route, he’ll do what he did for twenty years with the Yankees, sucking it up, staying reserved, and ultimately, putting on a good show for everyone.

Yankees: Sorry about that Mr. Hicks, I see what Joe was talking about

All along, Yankees skipper Joe Girardi was saying that Aaron Hicks needs to get at-bats because he can produce for the team. He was right, I was wrong.

And then, he’ll disappear into his “real” life, and the 25 guys in the dugout will disappear into theirs as well. And we’ll have yet another opportunity to watch the 2017 Yankees take the national stage. Because that’s what Sunday night is all about.