MINNEAPOLIS — This is supposed to be the Halftime Show, not the Final Act. It’s too cheesy, too contrived, to represent the final time Derek Jeter takes the national stage.
However, we don’t get to choose our endings, right? There’s an excellent chance when Jeter departs this 2014 All-Star Game at Target Field, his 14th selection to the Midsummer Classic, it’ll represent the last chance for the baseball universe to bid him a universal farewell and thank you.
“I’m sure we’ll be on another Sunday night ESPN game or something like that,” the newly relaxed Yankees captain cracked Monday, during the American League player availabilities at a downtown hotel. “I just try to enjoy every day. So I don’t think about it like that.”
For sure, Jeter has built his Hall of Fame career on not only his superb athleticism, but also a seemingly endless reservoir of optimism and confidence from which he has ruled out negative outcomes. Yet the rest of us can see the horizon more objectively, and it isn’t pretty.
Jeter’s Yankees sit at the All-Star break with a perfectly mediocre 47-47 record — five games behind Buck Showalter’s Orioles (52-42) in the American League East and 3 ¹/₂ games behind Robinson Cano’s Mariners (51-44) in the race for the second AL wild card. Their negative differential of 375 runs scored and 412 allowed speaks well of their ability to overcome adversity and bodes poorly for the rest of this season. They have lost 80 percent of their Opening Day starting rotation to injury, with Ivan Nova absolutely out for the season and Michael Pineda, CC Sabathia and perhaps Masahiro Tanaka not probable to return.
Hence we face the strong likelihood Jeter’s career will conclude on Sept. 28 at Fenway Park, when the Yankees’ regular season is scheduled to wrap up. Which would mean no October send-off for Mr. November, a rather unfitting resolution.
Which leaves us with this Midsummer Classic. You don’t really think of All-Star Games when you bring up Jeter’s name, although that speaks more to his accomplishments elsewhere than to any struggles in this contest. He is the only player ever to win Most Valuable Player honors in the All-Star Game and the World Series in the same season, 2000, and his 11 All-Star Game hits give him the most of any Yankee, even though Mickey Mantle (20) and Yogi Berra (18) appeared in more games.
Whereas some of his contemporaries skipped the All-Star Game at the mere whiff of a schedule conflict or injury — let’s just say Mariano Rivera didn’t seem to cry over any of the four invitations he turned down — Jeter has embraced the event as important to the marketing of the sport, as well as Jeter’s brand himself. He did skip the 2011 game in Phoenix, days after getting his 3,000th career hit, although I thought he earned the benefit of the doubt on that one, as he had just returned from the disabled list.
“There’s a lot of them,” Jeter said of his All-Star Game memories. “The first one [1998 in Colorado], you’re always going to remember. The first game I got a chance to start [2000] in Atlanta. The Yankee Stadium All-Star Game [2008] was special.
“One of the ones that stands out the most is we were in Boston in ’99 and they did the All-Century team, I got a tap on the shoulder, and it was Hank Aaron. He was looking for me because he wanted to meet me. That’s something that stands out. That’s one of the best moments I had on a baseball field.”
Major League Baseball will do everything in its power to ensure another best moment on Tuesday. When MLB Network broadcaster Brian Kenny opened the media proceedings on Monday, he mentioned just one name: Jeter’s. Nike introduced its spectacular “RE2PECT” advertisement Monday, which was a gigantic love letter to the shortstop.
And AL manager John Farrell, who leads the rival Red Sox in his other life, hit Jeter leadoff in his lineup even though Jeter’s .324 on-base percentage ties him with Baltimore’s Adam Jones at seventh among the starters (ahead of only third baseman Josh Donaldson’s .317).
“I never just assumed that I’d come back,” Jeter said of this event. “Every All-Star Game I’ve been to, I treated it like it would be my last one, so in that sense, I don’t think it makes a difference.”
He’ll produce a highlight Tuesday night, if history holds. But history and reputation alone won’t get Jeter back to the month, and to the games, he loves most of all.