NEW YORK — Derek Jeter didn’t want the night to end.
The retiring captain gave New York one
more
win with a big hit, then took two trips out to shortstop, waving to the
adoring crowd each time following his final home game at Yankee
Stadium.
Soon after his game-winning single in the ninth inning sent the
Yankees over Baltimore 6-5 Thursday, Jeter said he played his last game
at the position. He would only serve as designated hitter in his final
three games in Boston this weekend.
‘‘I want to take something special from Yankee Stadium,’’ Jeter said
in a news conference shown on the center field video board, with many
fans still in their seats. ‘‘The view from shortstop here tonight is
what I want to take.’’
As if on cue, Jeter began his last game in pinstripes with a double and ended it with another amazing moment in a
career full of them.
‘‘You can’t even dream this stuff up,’’ manager Joe Girardi said.
He was embraced by his teammates near second base as his Core Four
buddies — Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada — came onto the
field along with former manager Joe Torre, Bernie Williams and Tino
Martinez.
‘‘Sort of an out-of-body experience,’’ said Jeter, who went 2 for 5 with three RBIs.
Jeter pointed and waved to the crowd of the 48,613, nearly all
remained, as he walked out to the position he manned for 20 seasons. In
an
image
seen before nearly every one of his 1,391 games at Yankee Stadium,
Jeter faced the outfield and crouched down for a moment of reflection.
‘‘Basically, I just say thank you because this is all I ever wanted to do,’’ Jeter said of his ritual.
He then answered a few questions for TV, said hello to his family who
moved to the front row near the Yankees dugout for the final two
innings, and greeted the teammates he won five World Series
championships with.
Once more he took a slow walk across the diamond, covering his face
with a towel several times and waving to the crowd as they chanted his
name and ‘‘Thank you, Jeter!’’
All across the majors, players saluted the 40-year-old star.
‘‘
Wow,’’
Boston slugger David Ortiz said, breaking into a grin and shaking his
head after the Red Sox beat Tampa Bay at Fenway Park. ‘‘That’s him.
Perfect. It was unbelievable.’’
Moments after Detroit beat
Minnesota, many players in the Tigers’ clubhouse at Comerica Park simply stood in silence and watched the postgame on TV.
‘‘You could see it coming when the inning started,’’ reigning AL Cy
Young winner Max Scherzer said. ‘‘We were sitting in the lunchroom. It
was like, ‘Jeter’s hitting third. He’s going to walk it off.’ We knew
it.’’
With a packed house cheering his every move from the moment he ran
out to stretch, and some tickets going for $10,000 each, Jeter’s
farewell in the Bronx began on time after a rainy, dreary day.
The captain led the team out of the dugout — as usual — and the
cheering began in earnest — rarely letting up when Jeter was on the
field. He took several deep breaths when he settled in at shortstop and
waved to the crowd before the first pitch.
Andrew and Margaret Koslosky were sitting in the front row behind the
backstop. He said he had a chance to sell his tickets for $10,000 each
and turned it down.
‘‘There wasn’t enough
money
in the world to pay for the history we saw tonight,’’ he said after the
game. ‘‘End of an era. We grew up with that kid and we grew old with
him. A part of all of us retired tonight.’’
The final
player
to wear a single-digit number for the Yankees waved to fans in the box
seats as he came to the on-deck circle in the first inning. After a
standing ovation that lasted nearly a minute, he launched a long drive
that just missed being a home run.
The drive off Kevin Gausman, who was 4 when Jeter made his debut in
1995, was the 3,462nd hit of No. 2’s career, good for sixth on the
career list. Jeter wound up scoring on a grounder as the crowd roared
once again.
‘‘When he hit that double I went behind
home plate to cover and I swear I felt the entire place shaking,’’ Gausman said. ‘‘The crowd was doing it for him, for the moment.’’
Not everything was perfect for the 14-time All-Star with a charmed career and five World Series championships.
The Bleacher Creatures roll call was interrupted just as they got to a
thunderous chant of ‘‘De-rek Je-ter!’’ That’s when Baltimore’s Nick
Markakis led off the game with a home run, but Jeter still waved to the
crew out in right-center field. Alejandro de Aza nearly silenced the
crowd by connecting again.
But as they have throughout the Yankees’ final homestand, nearly
50,000 fans stood in unison, with their camera lights shining and began
cheering as a recording of longtime public address announcer Bob
Sheppard’s introduction of Jeter played ahead of his first at-bat.
The constant celebrations over the eight-game homestand got to the
always cool Jeter, and he felt as if he was going to cry several times
Thursday: On his drive to the Bronx, when his teammates presented him
with a painting and a watch, and right on up until he stepped into the
batter’s box in the ninth.
‘‘I think I’ve done a pretty good
job
of controlling my emotions throughout the course of my career,’’ Jeter
said. ‘‘Today I wasn’t able to do it. It’s been getting more and more
difficult these last few weeks, but today I wasn’t able to do it.’’
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