Appreciating Jeter

On Tuesday I attended the MLB All Star Game at Target Field. Now, going to an all star game hasn't exactly been a top item on my bucket list. I'm a huge baseball fan, but the game simply isn't the event it once was. Maybe it's because of free agency, or interleague play, or the fact that on most nights you can find a way to watch any of baseball's great players. When I was younger, the All Star Game was exciting because there were certain players you rarely got to see play. And seeing a member of your team (in my case, the Mets) playing among baseball's greats was a vicarious thrill. That luster is gone. Nonetheless, when the opportunity to attend this year's game arose, I gladly took it.

The star of this night, aside from Target Field, was New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter, making his final appearance in the All Star Game before his retirement. I'll admit upfront that I've never been as enamored of Jeter as other, and that's put me in a lonely place. I'm not going to argue that he's over-rated. His career numbers will speak for themselves. But I have always believed that he benefits from the Yankee myth-making machine and from playing in the country's largest media market. Maybe that's a distinction without a difference. But had Derek Jeter spent his career in a smaller market (say Pittsburgh or Kansas City), would he have become the face of the game? That's the question I've always asked myself.

Of course, I'm not a Yankee fan either, and Derek Jeter was the face of the Yankee dynasty of the late '90s. I despised those teams. And Jeter was everywhere for them, getting big hits when they were needed, stealing bases, playing solid (and sometimes spectacular) defense. There were times it seemed he came up to bat every single inning, especially late in the game. And every time he came up he'd work the count, taking balls, stepping out of the batter's box, and fouling off pitches until he found just the right pitch to do something with. If you were rooting for the other team, it was spirit crushing. Especially in the playoffs, where Jeter excelled. And he did it all cleanly, in an era that will always be tainted by the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs.

That, of course, is what made Derek Jeter so great. And the flip side to my argument that Jeter benefited from playing in New York is that he not only withstood the intense scrutiny of the city's baseball fans but flourished under the white hot spotlight. Yankee Stadium is a place where many previously great players have failed. And unlike players like Reggie Jackson and Alex Rodriguez, who wanted to be the brightest stars on and off the stage, Jeter somehow managed to go about his business as quietly and as professionally as possible. He could hold a master class on how to conduct yourself as a professional athlete.

So, in the end, I was happily among the 41,000 fans who gave Derek Jeter four standing ovations on Tuesday night,  a night on which he (of course) got two hits and scored the first run. I even found myself getting a little choked up (forgive me, Mets fans) as he walked off the field to the strains of "New York, New York." It was probably a little bit more than he wanted, but he handled it with his usual grace. One would hope the other players on the field were taking note.