NEW YORK — Moments unspooled on the gargantuan video board between innings all night, Derek Jeter as he so often appeared: Larger than life.
From heroic World Series homers to the triumphant dive into the stands to Frank Sinatra singing “My Way” as Jeter thanked the fans to the Flip Play—oh my goodness, the Flip Play.
On the field below, dwarfed by history, brittle with age, Jeter took several deep breaths. He shuffled his feet in the dirt. More deep breaths.
Cameras flashed. Signs waved. Eternal youth was taking a called third strike and Derek Sanderson Jeter would never again stand in this dirt, on this field, wearing Yankee pinstripes.
More deep breaths.
Al Bello/Getty Images“I don’t know how I played,” he would say later, after sending new Yankee Stadium into orbit one last time. Game-winning hit in his final home game, 6-5 on the scoreboard, an unfathomable ending to an unbelievable career.
“I tried to be calm, cool and collected with you guys. The last few weeks, it’s been more and more difficult,” he would admit.
“A couple of times, I almost lost it. In the first inning, I was saying, ‘Please don’t hit it to me.’ I was saying that in the ninth inning. I don’t know how many times in my career I’ve said that. I really thought I was going to break down.
“And then the next thing I know, they tied it.”
This was Jeter as we’ve never seen him. A postgame mess, drained of the emotion he kept perfectly bottled, like a most expensive bottle of wine, for the past 20 years.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.
“Write what you want, and put my name at the bottom of it.”
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