CATCH A WHIFF: Derek Jeter swings meekly to strike out in the eighth inning, conceivably his final at-bat as a Yankee. (Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post)
ARLINGTON, Texas — The shortstop looked old. He was 36. He couldn’t get to the ball in the hole much any longer. He managed to hit just a meaningless .250 in the ALCS with no RBIs.
The shortstop was young. He was 22. He could get to the ball in the hole, recording the final out of the ALCS by doing just that. He hit .417, delivered 10 hits, scored five runs, cracked three extra-base hits, stole two bases.
At the conclusion of that 1996 ALCS, Cal Ripken was done as an everyday shortstop, reluctantly shuffled to third base in 1997. Derek Jeter, meanwhile, was a champion in his rookie season. Taking the torch from Ripken as the Yanks beat his Orioles in the ALCS in five games, a step toward becoming a cornerstone to a dynasty.
And here we were last night, when the old shortstop was Jeter, the cornerstone cracked. He is 36. He couldn’t get to the ball in the hole much any longer. He managed to hit a low-impact .231 in the ALCS.
The young shortstop was Elvis Andrus. He is 22. He definitely can get to the hole, making the three best defensive plays of this series. He has hit in all 11 of the Rangers’ postseason games, setting the tone from the leadoff spot that Jeter did not. The shortstop torch this time passed from Jeter to Andrus and, not surprisingly, the AL championship passed from the Yankees to Texas.
The Rangers beat the Yankees 6-1 last night in Game 6, assuring their first World Series trip by thoroughly outplaying — and outmanaging — the Yanks. Texas was young, spry and aggressive, while the Yanks looked old, tentative and fading.
Nothing embodied that dynamic more than Jeter vs. Andrus. Old Elvis vs. Young Elvis.
Jeter is now Ripken, the face and the burden of a franchise. He cannot be moved to third, where Alex Rodriguez already has done the Ripken-esque shortstop-to-third-base maneuver.
In a somber clubhouse, Jeter in shorts and T-shirt returned to his locker, pulled a Yankees cap on and offered this mantra about his looming free agency: It would have been “selfish” to think about it during the season and was too soon afterward now to consider how it might play out. However, he reiterated that he wants to remain a Yankee, and GM Brian Cashman said he cannot imagine Jeter anywhere else.
“I am not here sitting thinking about my future,” Jeter said.
But the Yankees better. Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Joe Girardi also are free agents, as is Rangers ace, Cliff Lee, who is certain to top the Yankees’ wish list as they try to reload for 2011.
However, nothing will dominate the Yankee universe like the Jeter negotiations, since he is both icon and now puzzle. He followed his worst season with an inconsequential postseason. Both sides need each other, but that addiction ultimately could damage the Yankees’ immediate future if Jeter must remain atop the order and as an everyday shortstop, a statue already before he ever reaches Monument Park.
There is no Fountain of Youth. Every dollar the Yankees give over about $7 million and every year they give beyond 2011 is a dollar paid for who Jeter was, and not who he currently is and will be.
His final game of 2010 felt like an endless loop of the season: Three meek groundouts and, in conceivably his last Yankee at-bat, being overmatched and struck out by Colby Lewis.
Jeter was the little engine that couldn’t for a Yankees offense that had no fuel in this series. The Yankees never sent more than three men to the plate in the first inning in any of the six games, Jeter going 0-for-6. Andrus, on the other hand, had three hits and a walk in his first at-bats, scored three times and stole two bases, including home.
“They deserve to be moving on,” Jeter said. “They played better than us.”
Maybe even if Jeter had played young to match Andrus, the Yanks wouldn’t have won. Their pitching collapsed so thoroughly.
Nevertheless, the 2010 ALCS — like the one in 1996 — was symbolized in the old shortstop vs. the young one. And Jeter headed into an uncertain Yankee offseason as the old shortstop this time.
joel.sherman@nypost.com