by Joe Torre
“A lot of times people think, First pitch, just let me lay it down the middle, just get ahead, especially in the World Series with everybody taking pictures,” Jeter said. “No, I was aggressive. I was thinking, If he throws me a strike, I'm going to try to hit it.”
One year later, in another World Series Game 4, this one against the Diamondbacks, Jeter hit the last pitch for a home run, a 10th-inning walkoff shot against sidewinding reliever Byung-Hyun Kim. The blast occurred in the first hour of November 1, bestowing upon him the unprecedented nickname of Mr. November.
“That was the first time I faced Kim,” Jeter said. “It takes a while to pick up his release point. I had seen a lot of pitches. To be honest with you, I was just trying to get on base. He left a slider out over the plate. The only thing that could have made it better was if it was Game 7. Everyone dreams of playing in a World Series, of hitting a home run in a World Series. A walkoff home run in a World Series? It doesn't get any better, especially in New York, and after 9/11.”
Jeter's definitive postseason moment, the one that best captured his deus ex machina dramatics, had occurred 18 days earlier in the third game of the Division Series against Oakland, an elimination game for the Yankees. The Yankees clung to a 1-0 lead with two outs in the seventh inning when Terrence Long pulled a pitch into the right-field corner off Mike Mussina with Jeremy Giambi running at first base. As right fielder Shane Spencer played the carom off the wall, second baseman Alfonso Soriano and first baseman Tino Martinez aligned themselves near the right-field line, Martinez behind Soriano, for a relay to home plate. If the throw sailed over Soriano, Martinez was there as a backup to catch the ball and relay it home. As Spencer caught the ball, turned and threw, Jeter instantly knew something was wrong. He could tell by how the ball came out of Spencer's hand that his throw was going to be too high for Soriano and Martinez to catch.
“So I reacted to that and then adjusted to the plate,” Jeter said.
As the throw was in flight Jeter noticed it was also off line and ran to a spot where he calculated it would land.
“But I'm supposed to be in that area,” he said. “I was where I was supposed to be. I'm the third cutoff man. If there was no play at the plate, I redirect it trying to get the runner going to third, because they just wave the other runner around and he keeps going. But in that situation, we still had a chance to get him at home.”
How could Jeter know he still had a chance to get Giambi?
“You look,” he said. “It was a reaction thing. If Spencer would have hit one of the first two cutoff men, Giambi would have been out by 10 feet.”
Jeter made a play that only could have been made by a player with supreme alertness, the mental computing power to quickly crunch the advanced baseball calculus needed to process the trajectory and speed of Spencer's throw and the speed and location of a runner behind his back, and the athletic and improvisational skills to actually find a way to get the ball home on time and on target while running in a direction opposite to the plate. Jeter fielded the throw on a bounce and, like a hurried quarterback executing a shovel pass, flicked the ball backhanded to catcher Jorge Posada. The flip was perfectly placed. Posada caught it and reached for Giambi, who inexplicably failed to slide and ran into the tag a split second before his foot touched home plate. The 1-0 lead was preserved, as it would be for the remainder of the game. The Yankees also survived two more elimination games to win the series.
Great postseason moments become eponymous games that live on in posterity, especially when deciding home runs are involved. The Kirk Gibson Game. The Joe Carter Game. The Aaron Boone Game. Leave it to Jeter to put in baseball's time capsule a game defined by an impromptu seventh-inning defensive play: The Flip Game.
“I don't know if you can explain it,” Jeter said of how he executed the play. “You always try to prepare. You always try to think of things in advance before they happen. And I think that's what slows the game down sometimes for you. It's not something that catches you off guard because in your mind you're thinking of different scenarios before they happen.”
Said Torre, “He only improvised in the way that he did it. Ball down the right-field line, man on first base, the second baseman will go out and the first baseman will trail him. There's basically nobody between the first baseman and home plate. It's a sure double, so nobody needs to be at second base. The only thing the shortstop has to determine is, is the play going to be at third or is it going to be at home? So he's got to be between the mound and shortstop, on the grass, to see the play, watch the runner, and he has to make up his mind.
“That throw was so bad, in foul territory, because Spencer just got rid of it. And unless you're an athlete, you can't do something like that, like what Derek did. And I give Posada credit. He stayed home. He didn't say, ‘Oh, shit, the ball is off line. I better go get it so this guy doesn't go all the way over to third.’ But that was one of those plays of a lifetime—under that type of pressure: 1-0 game, seventh inning. I remember Moose was roaming around home plate and he gave one of those fist pumps when we got the out. Derek? He came in the dugout and it was, ‘Okay let's go.’ He never gets excited about it.”
What was it about Jeter that enabled him to succeed in clutch situations? He was comfortable with himself. There never were doubts about who he was or what the mission was all about.
“I'm an optimist by nature,” Jeter said. “That's why when it comes to any negative stuff, I don't like to hear about it, I don't like to read about it, I don't like to know about it. I try to be positive. So I was always, in my mind, hopeful he would come back.”
Such a strong belief in a positive outcome sustains Jeter, lifts him above any self-doubt or any awareness of the consequences of failure. It is a characteristic he brought to the 1996 Yankees as a 21-year-old rookie, not a vestige of the big league experience he gained. It is, as he said, his nature. Teammates tapped into that quality immediately. If you're looking for someone to follow, why not follow the one who is sure the outcome of the journey will be positive? Why not follow someone, even a kid in his first full year in the big leagues, who stays cool at all times, who is unfamiliar with worry and anxiety?
Said Mike Borzello, the bullpen catcher in those championship seasons, “Jeter's leadership comes from his confidence, and it started from Day One. I always look at guys when they fail to see if their confidence wavers. I've never seen Derek not look like he was going to win whatever battle he was going to be involved in. I've always said there are three or four guys in sports since I've been watching who are like that: Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter. When Tiger's 10 shots behind, it looks the same. Kobe shoots 1-for-19 in a playoff series, and he's going to shoot again. Derek can be 0-for-4 with four strikeouts and he thinks he's going to beat you in the next at-bat.
“I think that's something so rare in sports. I mean, really rare, to see someone fail and still feel like, ‘Give me one more shot. Let me get one more chance.’ Some guys are like, ‘I don't have it today. Hopefully it doesn't come down to me.’ And Derek is not that guy. He is someone that when the game is on the line, he wants that ball hit to him. When the at-bat in the game is most important, he wants it, no matter what happened the past three or four at-bats. No matter if he just booted a ball in the eighth inning, he wants that ball hit to him in the ninth with two outs, the bases loaded, up by a run.
“That's what you feed off of with Derek Jeter. Just that he never wavers. You never see a chink in his armor. It's something that you really can't fully explain and you don't see very often.”
Jeter's talent and confidence helped make him a great player right out of the box. It was his humility and desire to win above all else that made him a great teammate and a manager's dream.
“I remember one time Paul Quantrill, the relief pitcher, came up to me in Kansas City one game,” Torre said, “and said, ‘You know, you know Jeter is a good player, but you never realize how good until you play with him.’ That's the highest compliment
you can pay somebody, when you have someone just come up unsolicited and say something like that.
“There's a certain—cold is too strong a word—a business mentality with him. You earn your keep with Derek. He's never in all the years we were together asked to have a family member, his dad, anybody, come into the clubhouse or hang out in the dugout. One time, he said to me, ‘Mr. T, there's this kid with cancer. Do you mind if I take him around the clubhouse?’ That was the extent of it. One time.”
It was a remarkable record of decorum: twelve years with Torre in New York, where he owned the town, and Jeter never parlayed his status into special privilege. Twelve years together and the manager never had a problem with him.
“No,” Torre said. “Okay, maybe one thing. Every once in a while I'd catch him messing around at shortstop before a game, doing fancy stuff. You know, throwing the ball behind his back, things like that. I'd stop that because that's just creating bad habits. But that was it. That was the extent of any kind of stuff.”
Twelve years and the biggest problem he created was flipping practice grounders behind his back? No wonder Jeter quickly became one of Torre's most reliable soldiers. Over the years Torre would use people like Girardi and Cone to deliver messages to teammates on a peer-to-peer basis. No one filled the role more than Jeter, especially once he was named captain in 2003. It was never Jeter's nature to be loud and extroverted. But if it meant speaking up for the good of the team, especially under the advisement of Torre, Jeter was all in.
“Jeter was such a big part of what we established,” Torre said. “I filled him in on what we needed to have done. He would literally commit to it. I wouldn't say buy in. He would commit to do something. He trusted me to the point where he knew what was important.
“Jeter is unique. He's a gentleman, but there is a standoffish way about him. I've known him a long time and he doesn't show a lot of emotion. But the right things are important to him, the things a manager knows are important.
“I'd push him to speak up at team meetings. He'd do it, but when he spoke it was always ‘we.’ ‘We're doing this …’ After he became captain he got more into that. Sometimes I'd warn him, where I would tell him, ‘I may want you to say something.’ It wouldn't be rah-rah. He would be critical, like, ‘We can't not run the ball out.’ He may be aiming his comments at an individual but he would be critical in his remarks without naming any one person.”
What also endeared Jeter to his Yankees teammates, but not the team's medical personnel, was his near maniacal desire to play, no matter how hurt he might be. Fact is, the Yankees medical people often didn't know the extent of Jeter's injuries because he would refuse to even admit he was hurt. Torre, for instance, learned quickly to stop asking Jeter if he needed a day off. Instead, Torre would have to ask, “Do you want this day off or that day off?” That way Jeter knew he was getting a day off and it was a matter of which one he chose.
Jeter, because he hits with a diving style that brings his arms and hands toward the plate, puts himself in harm's way of inside pitches. He frequently took fastballs off his hands and wrists. But the conversations were almost always the same with one of the trainers:
Trainer: “Let's get an X-ray on that.”
Jeter: “No. Why do you want to do that?”
Trainer: “To see if it's broke.”
Jeter: “What's the difference? I'm playing anyway. It doesn't matter what the doctor said.”
“He is never good and he is never bad, he is always just ready to play,” trainer Steve Donahue said. “Don Mattingly was like that, too. He never said he can't play. Never. He always goes, ‘I'm playing.’ Half the time he wouldn't even go see the doctor. He's had elbow, hand, wrist, shoulder, quad … every injury and he keeps playing. I love him. He had a really bad thumb against the Red Sox in the ‘04 playoffs, but he kept playing. He will never say, ‘I need a day off’
“I think the other guys on the team look at him and they see he's not a vocal leader, but what he does and the way he competes is what inspires guys. It's the way he carries himself, too. He doesn't say stupid things. He just wants to blend in and play. He wants everything to go smoothly. It's really a credit to his parents.”
Said Torre, “He didn't care where the hell he hit in the lineup he didn't have an issue with anything. He'd say ‘Whatever you want to do.’ That one series he played, against Boston in 2004, he had a broken bone in that hand. They gave him a shot for pain, and he made them stop giving him the painkiller because he couldn't get a feel for things with his hand. He just played on.
“Even in 2007, in the playoffs, his body was beat up. As a manager, you think once the postseason comes around something is going to change, especially with him because he's been so good in the postseason. But that's when I said, ‘He's trying, but he can't get it done.’ He was frustrated, extremely frustrated. I think his body just wasn't able to keep the promises. The thing is, I can ask him right now if anything was hurting and he still wouldn't tell me, even if it was two years ago.”
Another rare time when Torre saw Jeter frustrated was in April of 2004, when Jeter endured an 0-for-32 slump, the longest hitless streak by a Yankee in 27 years. It happened to be his first month playing with Alex Rodriguez, who had an 0-for-16 slide himself that month.
“There were people saying the slump was because Alex was there,” Torre said. “You knew that wasn't the case, not if you were in the clubhouse and you knew the personalities. Of course, Alex came to me and said, ‘I'm trying to help him.’ I said, ‘Good. That's important.’ “
During the hitless streak Jeter fouled off a bunt attempt with a runner on second base and two outs, a concession to the slump rather than trying to drive in the runner. After the inning, Torre went up to Jeter and asked him, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Mr. T,” Jeter said while laughing at himself, “I need a hit.”
Said Torre, “He knew it was bad baseball. That streak got to him. But he wasn't about to be the kind of guy who was going to give in and take a day off. I presented it to him several times and he wanted no part of that. He could have been 0-for-100 and he was not going to give in and take a day off.”
If there was any downside to Jeter, it was his range at shortstop which statistical analysts annually derided as among the worst in baseball. When Jeter arrived in the big leagues, he had a habit of reaching for balls to his left with two hands, which effectively reduced his reach. Jeter worked to improve his technique, but according to the number crunchers who charted batted balls, he never conquered his difficulty ranging to his left. Part of the problem was that he often played through leg injuries without making it known publicly. If limited range was Jeter's Achilles’ heel, Torre was more than willing to live with it because of everything else Jeter gave the Yankees. After all, the Yankees did win four World Series and six pennants with Jeter manning the shortstop position. Torre still wanted the ball hit to Jeter with the game on the line, as great a cut-to-the-chase test of a shortstop's value as anything.
“There were times he'd play more up the middle than you'd want him,” Torre said. “You'd move him, but then he'd keep creeping and you'd move him back. Then he'd make that play in the hole, the one with the jump throw, and there was nobody who could make a play like that. You knew his limitations as a shortstop but when you looked at the whole package, it worked.
“I used to kid him about playing center field. He never wanted to move. What you love about him is that he doesn't make excuses, he doesn't showboat, he doesn't do any of that stuff. He just goes out and plays.”
Fate brought Jeter to the right team, and it wasn't so much because it was the Yankees, the franchise he dreamed of playing for as a kid, as much as it was because of the band of brothers in those pinstriped uniforms. The way Jeter played baseball was the way all of them played baseball, and for their unselfishness they were blessed with four World Series titles. It was the only kind of baseball Jeter knew growing up and it was the only kind of baseball he knew as
a major leaguer, until the Yankees began to change around him. It was foreign to him to see teammates concern themselves with individual statistics or to actually find comfort in the convenience of some sort of ailment as a means of taking off a day here or a week there. It became apparent to Jeter in 2002 that the gang he loved, the kind of baseball he loved, was gone. The Yankees lost the Division Series that year to the Anaheim Angels, and they did so without Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez, Chuck Knoblauch, all of whom retired or were allowed to move on to other clubs. Jeter, uncharacteristically, bared his emotional wounds after the last game of the series, telling reporters who inquired about his surprise with the Yankees getting knocked out, “It's a different team.”
Said Jeter, “It was a different team.”
Torre knew it, too.
“It was just not an unselfish team,” Torre said. “We were all spoiled. Derek, too. Derek comes up to the major leagues and all of a sudden you win four World Series in five years. When you look at the guys who were no longer there: O'Neill, Tino, Brosius, Knoblauch … You try to figure out why in 2002 that ferociousness wasn't there, the refuse-to-be-denied stuff. It wasn't there. The team wasn't tough enough.
“When you're in a clubhouse with people and you play alongside them, you know when you walk out on the field the other team is going to be in for a fight. You have to have that feeling. It's about trust. That guy on the mound might not get the batter out, but the game is not going to speed up for him. He knows how to channel his emotions. What changed was a number of players out there are trying to do the job to their own satisfaction, instead of getting the job done. A lot of those players are more concerned about what it looks like as opposed to getting dirty and just getting it done. Those other teams, they were ferocious.”
Said pitcher Mike Mussina, who arrived in 2001, “I always thought the personality of the team fed off of Joe Torre. And Joe was never too emotional either way, up or down. He trusted his players and trusted them to be ready. One player may leave, but another player comes in. He's certainly capable of doing the same job the other guy did. The only question is, it's New York City. Can they do it in this atmosphere versus the atmosphere they were already doing it in?