Last night, baseball player Derek Jeter got a walk-off hit to win the game, in his last at bat at Yankee stadium, the home field where he played his entire 20 year hall of fame career.
The Yankees were up, 5-2, in the ninth. Most of the 48,613 kept looking at the dugout, wondering when Joe Girardi would send Brendan Ryan out to replace Jeter and bring with him an ovation that would shake the new stadium to its very core. Then it was 5-4 after a home run. And 5-5 after another.
The first impulse, of course, is anger. But then the fans realized something: More baseball meant one more at-bat, bottom of the ninth, third man up. The booing stopped then. And it was about then when the last spasm of fear rose inside Jeter’s stomach, up to his throat, farther up to his tear ducts.
“I think I’ve done a good job in my career of controlling my emotions,” Jeter would say. “I try to trick myself into not feeling those emotions, not feeling nerves or pain. But today I wasn’t able to do it.”
And then, a few seconds later, he would be inspired by the magnificence of it all: “Fifty thousand people chanting your name. I don’t know how many occupations that’s possible.”
33 comments:
The pitcher did a nice job of serving up hitable pitches. Baseball continues to be a sport full of fakes and phonies. Perhaps Jeets is less fake than others, but that's not saying much.
Hey, next year A-Rod's coming back! The farce in The Bronx continues.
I don't know. I think it was a legit win.
Somebody wake up Trooper.
Sounds like a pretty nifty moment.
*kicks Trooper*
It was as full of hooey as a moment can get - pitcher was grooving the pitches, and Jeter gets a hit.
Oh yay.
Icepick sent me a link to a post where by the numbers Jeter is brought back down closet to breathable air stratosphere.
Turns out Jeter is the 58th most productive player among non-pitchers in major-league history... if you knock out the juicers, his standing is closer to the number he wore on his uniform.
Sorry, Link.
What was his batting average this year?
The Yanks have a big empty hole waiting to be filled up a shortstop.
Rumor in Chicago is that the Cubs will trade Starlin Castro to the Yanks for pitching. The Cubs have Javy Baez and Addison Russell in waiting at shortstop.
Castro will be a Hall of Famer.
Please, God, don't let the Cubs trade him!
He hasn't been the same since his injury last year.
I think that influenced his decision to quit now.
I recently watched the movie Eyes Wide Shut (1999) because it was highly recommended during a CD lecture series I listened to a while back. I avoided the movie when it first came out because of the negative reviews and because of the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman thing.
I'm glad I saw it. Stayed up way past my bedtime to do so. (I'd originally anticipated watching it in two parts.)
But, man, was it ever disturbing. It's pretty easy to see how a lot of people would be repulsed by the undercurrent of ugliness that runs throughout the entire picture.
I was turned off, myself, for a good portion of it, but I kept watching it, anyway, in part because I felt like I was getting a valuable lesson during the process.
Some people who take cinema seriously and who have devoted their intellectual lives to the subject consider Stanley Kubrick to be an artistic genius.
Artistic genius - yeah, that's why he used the shadow of a B-17 behind the B-52 on a stick in Dr. Strangelove.
But seriously, I have seen a number of his movies, some of them more than once. I should probably watch Paths of Glory, as that is well thought of. Until then I remain kind of meh on Kubrick. I think his work is uneven, but maybe that's what he was going for.
However, any movie that has a naked Nicole Kidman in it is okay by me. Not sure that I need to watch any scenes other than those, though.
Nothing not to like about Jeter. A very, very good all around player, who stayed that way in the clutch. When the bright lights were on, Jeter was on. And he continued to be very good for a long time. And off the field, same, a very good person. And note the way he acted last night after hitting the winning single in his last at bat (looking at you Richard Sherman – that’s how a man acts).
Everything about Jetes was on display last night. Defied the weather. Rainbow before the game. First inning double off the wall. Wins the game in the ninth while looking like he’s going to break down crying at any second. Humble at the end. Magic. Few have it.
An interesting look by Sailer is here.
And that's why they call it "The Big Show."
I would expect nothing less of the Captain.
Clutch until the end. He grinded it out as he did his whole career. One at bat, one hit, one moment at a time.
Jeter time and again rose to the occasion.
Diving into the seats to snare a foul out instead of not running out a grounder. Being in the right position to make the flip in a pressure situation instead of hiding out or not being in a place to affect the outcome.
Derek Jeter always tried to put his team in a position to win. He didn’t win every time. The Yankees don’t win every time. They have their losses. They have their defeats. But nobody wins the way they do.
Luck is the residue of design.
What did I tell you?
I knew Trooper would something to say.
Good stuff Trooper.
There are always the nay-sayers and haters who would knock Jeter and the Yankees. Just as they knock our America. Or the America that used to be. Where achievement came through hard work and consistent effort. We might not have had the most talent or skill but we used what we had to triumph.
This is the America that worked overtime to build the bombs that incinerated German school children and radiated Japanese grandmothers so that we might be free. This is the America that took the minerals out of the earth and raped the environment and made a society where every welfare recipient can have a wide screen color TV and a smart phone. The old America. The America that is ending right behind our eyes.
They say Jeter is overrated. That what he accomplished doesn’t matter. That the records and statistics are all an illusion.
Of course the rings are not an illusion.
They say Jeter doesn't have talent. That he was lucky to play with the Yankees. That they buy their championships. Of course Jeter didn’t get his rings by stealing them. By cheating. By being turned into something he was not with performance enhancing drugs like A-Rod or Big Papi or Manny. He did it every day. Grinding it out. Winning. Never giving up on a play or an out or an inning or a season. The old fashioned way. The American Way.
The Yankees and their Captain are a perfect example of the triumph of capitalism. The Yankees are like US Steel. Or at least the way US Steel used to be before the EPA and the communists scum bags shut them down.
Let’s face it. If you can’t appreciate Jeter and the Yankees mean to America you are a communist
Kubrick in a nutshell: the verbal or literary thought in a Kubrick film is almost always sophomoric; on the other hand the visual or cinematic thought can be genius.
Just one example: in 2001: A Space Odyssey the first tool, a bone/club is used to kill animals and then to murder the leader of a rival clan, at which point it is flung up in the air and descends as a space station. The idea is puerile: all man's technical advance has been in the service of killing. The cinematic execution is breathtaking as is the entire Dawn of Man sequence.
I'd pay big bucks to see an irradiated grandmother, Japanese or otherwise.
In his last at bat at Yankee Stadium Babe Ruth grounded out.
In his last at bat at Yankee Stadium Lou Gehrig flied out.
In his last at bat at Yankee Stadium Mickey Mantle popped up to short.
In his last at bat at Yankee Stadium Joe DiMaggio struck out looking…because Marilyn was sitting in the front box…and she wasn’t wearing any underwear. That was what he was looking for.
Derek Jeter is unique.
I'm not particularly a fan but a very articulate 12:58, Troop.
The only star who had a comparable last at bat was .....Ted Williams. Ugh.
He hit a home run.
I guess that means that they are going to cut off Jeter's head and stick it in a refrigerator on top of a tuna fish can.
That the man knows what Minka Kelly feels like naked is more than enough to warrant my complete and total awed admiration.
Sixty is channeling Oliver Stone and Keith Olbermann.
It shouldn't disappoint me that someone who sees a space station in that famous transition would see some other things that aren't there, as well.
But it does.
My daughter loved Jeter from his rookie year when he was not famous. She loved his looks, but read voraciously about him, realizing he is a good man. She donated money to his Turn 2 Foundation when she was working in high school. It told me she had good taste in men. Well, she married a great man. So, schlepping her to NYC, Chicago and Detroit to see Jeter was worth every fucking minute, every fucking penny.
FU Batty.
ricpic:
"The idea is puerile: all man's technical advance has been in the service of killing."
Agreed. We all know it was in the service of getting nookie.
All I said was that the pitches he got in his last game were served on a plate and telegraphed.
He only played in 5 games in 20 years where his team was mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.
But he sucked this year. Scoreboard.
Isn't he 6th all time in hit production? Not too shabby.
I hate Y*nkees, NY Y*nkees included, but respect what he accomplished.
If I never hear about him again, that would be fine.
Let me tell you about my old neighbor King Kong Keller - now there was a Y*nkee - that ol' boy raised up some good horses, too.
Actually, I'll save those stories for another day.
deborah does wicked. ;^)
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