SoMnFan
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Olney on Jeter
Two camps have warred throughout Derek Jeter’s career -- those who claim he has raised his level of play in crucial moments, versus the crowd of skeptics, who countered that Jeter merely cashed in on a fragment of his extraordinary number of opportunities on the big stage.
I always thought both sides missed the point. I don’t believe Jeter suddenly got better when we were all watching, but he has never been diminished by the pressure, either. We’ve seen accomplished veterans playing in a critical spot, and they disintegrate, putting too much pressure on themselves -- trying too hard to get a big hit or struggling to command a fastball.
Jeter’s greatest attribute has always been that he reduced the playing of games to the lowest common denominator: He just had fun. After the contracts were signed and the media questions were answered and the fans were acknowledged, he just had fun, treating a World Series game the same way he treated a season opener at Kalamazoo Central High School. This is how he got the walk-off hit Thursday night versus the Orioles after nearly being overcome by tears in the eighth inning.
His OPS for the full season’s worth of postseason games he played -- 158 games, 650 at-bats, exactly 200 hits -- is .838. His OPS coming into this season was almost identical to that, at .828, and now stands at .817, with just a handful of at-bats left in his career. Spring training games, regular season, playoffs, World Series, it’s all been the same.
During the 2013 season, he was about to start an interview for ESPN at Fenway Park, and I mentioned to him that a lot of young players ask about how he answers questions.
“What do you tell them?” he asked me.
“I tell them you’re intentionally boring,” I said.
As he began to defend himself good-naturedly, I acknowledged that through the years he had gotten more relaxed with his answers. But anyway, that didn’t matter, I said, because it was apparent why Jeter has always handled himself the way he has.
“You don’t want any of this” -- the media stuff, or any outside force -- “to distract from what you do out there,” I said, and I gestured out to shortstop.
He agreed with that.
Jeter mentioned in conversation a couple of years ago that he has always been within five pounds of his playing weight when he started in the majors. The same weight, the same unwavering confidence, the ability to play each game in the same simplified way for so long, from the beginning of his career to the end. He may not have hit the most homers, or accumulated the most awards, or led in the most categories. And like the rest of us, he is undoubtedly more complicated than the narrative attached to him.
But in consistency and reliability and effort, and in how he has served the game, he has been an all-time great.
• Thursday’s hero: Jeter, of course, writes David Waldstein.
• Jeter provided one last memory, writes Mike Vaccaro.
• Jeter saved his best for last, writes David Lennon.
• He was a hero to the end, writes Bob Klapisch.
• Jeter scripted the perfect end, writes Ian O’Connor.
• The Tigers chose to watch Jeter’s last at-bat instead of watching the Royals.
It was the most apropos finish to a career, perhaps, since Ted Williams in 1960.
_____________________________
Work like a Captain.
Play like a Pirate.
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