2014 Storylines: The Captain Hangs 'Em Up

(Courtesy of Corey Sipkin/NY Daily News)

For almost 20 years now, Derek Jeter has been synonymous with the New York Yankees.  Pick almost any term to describe the Yankees as a team and chances are it will apply perfectly to Jeter too.  He's a winner, a champion, a professional.  He's been consistent, overrated at times, underrated at others.  He's been smart on and off the field, and downright selfish at times even as he maintains a spotless reputation as a "team first" guy in the mainstream sports media.

More than anything else, he's been one of the greatest Yankees and greatest shortstops of all time in his 19-year career, and last month he announced that this upcoming season, his 20th, would be his last.  Fresh off a season-long goodbye to perhaps the most beloved Yankee of all time last season, this year Yankee fans will get to repeat those emotions with perhaps the most respected Yankee of all time.  The Captain will give it one last go before calling it a career, putting a period on the end of one of the greatest shortstop careers in baseball history and signifying the official end to the Core Four Era.

Thoughts On Jeter's Retirement Announcement

By now we've all had time to read and digest yesterday's somewhat shocking announcement by Derek Jeter.  I say shocking because while I believed that this would be Jeter's last season, I definitely didn't see him going the Mo route and announcing it before the season and I definitely definitely didn't see him doing it via a pretty personal message posted to his Facebook page.

I said yesterday when I first posted the story that I needed time to gather my thoughts on this, and to be perfectly honest I'm still not sure how to go about writing about it.  Derek Jeter has been my favorite baseball player and favorite professional athlete period since his rookie season in 1996, the season that I first remember really paying close attention to the game of baseball and the first season where I could truly say I was a Yankee fan.  He's the greatest Yankee I'll ever see in my lifetime and some of my greatest sports memories are Jeter plays.  The Flip, the home run in the '01 World Series, the dive into the stands, the 3,000th hit.  I can remember those plays and where I was when I first saw them more vividly than I can remember what I did last Sunday afternoon.

I've also taken a much more objective stance in how I've viewed and written about Jeter in the last 2 years, almost to the point of being anti-Jeter at times.  I came right out and said I wanted him to retire in September because I didn't want to see him hobble through another lost season in 2014 and have those last 2 years be the final images of him that I'd remember.  So it was a bit of a clash of emotions yesterday when I read his message and started thinking back on all the Jeter memories I have, good and bad.  I'm already rambling here, and I don't think there's any way I can try to weave all of what I'm going to write into one coherent narrative, so to make it easier I'll just break it up into bite-size chunks and at least get some of what's been going through my head out there.

2013 Storylines Review: End Of An Era

(Courtesy of Howard Simmons/NY Daily News)

The Giants have won a few championships recently, and the Cardinals are trying to get another one of their own this postseason.  But the last true baseball dynasty was the 1996-2001 New York Yankees.  Those Yankee teams, driven by an up-the-middle core of homegrown players and a ton of smart acquisitions that fit the team's yearly needs and clubhouse environment, played in 5 of 6 World Series in that span and won 4 of them.  Were it not for that fateful Luis Gonzalez bloop single, it could have been a clean 5-for-5.  Those days are long gone, and while the 2009 championship was fantastic, it's a footnote to the extended era of success the Yankees have had up until 2013, an era defined by those '96-'01 years and the key players involved.

The Core Four lost its first member when Jorge Posada retired after the 2011 season, and it stood to lose at least 1 more after 2013 when Mariano Rivera announced that this season would be his last.  Another connection to that era of dominance was leaving, and the Yankees were drawing closer and closer to the official end of that era.  Between the year-long celebration of Mo, Andy Pettitte's retirement announcement, and the health-related struggles of Derek Jeter, 2013 did indeed end up being the final chapter of the last great Yankee dynasty.

A Bit Of Significance To Today's Game

A ticket stub from a Spring Training game usually doesn't mean much, especially with the types of lineups the Yankees have been putting on the field lately.  Those with tickets today's game, however, might be wise to hang onto them and tell their kids and grandkids about the time they got to see three of the best in Yankee history play.

The scheduled starter for today's ST game against the Phillies is Andy Pettitte, making his 2013 debut.  Also scheduled to pitch today is Mariano Rivera, making his second spring appearance as he continues his comeback from last year's ACL injury.  And scheduled to start at shortstop, for the first time this spring and for the first time since breaking his ankle in the ALCS, is Derek Jeter.  The three remaining pieces of the Core Four, 15 World Series rings between them, the last links to the late 90s Yankee dynasty, and they'll all be on the field today.

These three are easily the greatest Yankees of the last 35 years, and the number of times that we're likely to see all three of them play in the same game has to be down in the single digits.  With Mo already set to retire after this season, Andy probably heading down the same path, and all three guys being injury risks in their own way, it's hard to predict exactly how many more times this will occur.  Today it's practically a guarantee that all three of them will be in the same game, though, and that's a cool little footnote in Yankee history.  It doesn't matter who wins or loses today's game, but there's definitely a little more meaning to it with these three scheduled to play together.

Jorge Throwing Out The First Pitch Tomorrow

(Courtesy of Debby Wong/US Presswire)

Everybody probably already knows this by now, but if not, BREAKING NEWZ!!!!

Tomorrow is the home opener and the recently-retired Jorge Posada is scheduled to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.  As someone (probably one of the few) who was always on the fence when it came to Jorge and not head-over-heels in fanlove with him like most Yankee fans, I will say that I am pleasantly surprised that this is happening.

Truth be told, I thought there would be a little more time between his retirement and return to Yankee Stadium because of how things ended between Jorge and the Yankees.  There was the whole "taking himself out of the lineup" fiasco last the season, the outright declaration by the Yankees that they weren't going to offer him a new deal, and Jorge basically being forced to retire because no other teams were interested in him.  I got the sense from watching the clips of his retirement press conference and reading some of the quotes that he really didn't WANT to have to hang them up, and I'm glad that there doesn't appear to be any ill will between him and the one organization he called home for so long.

Tomorrow afternoon's game will definitely be in the top 5 for games I wish I could have attended since I moved out to Wisconsin and it's simply because Jorge is going to be there to throw out the first pitch.  The atmosphere is going to be INSANE!  I'm literally getting goosebumps right now at my desk thinking about how loud that ovation is going to be.  After the rough way Jorge went out as a player, it's only right to bring him right back to the place where he is universally loved so he can be reminded of just how important and beloved a member of the Yankee family he is.

** If any AB4AR readers are going to the game tomorrow, take some pictures or video of the days' events and send them to me.  I'd love to get a sense of what the atmosphere was like and I'd love to throw some stuff up in a post. **