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Thank You, Captain Jeter

It’s a rainy day in the Tri-State area. Very October-like. Today is supposed to be Derek Jeter’s final regular season game in pinstripes. While many fans would prefer a sunny, warm, fall-like day, perhaps it’s appropriate that it’s rainy, because today is a sad day. Let’s just hope Mother Nature cooperates enough to allow The Captain one more game in The Bronx.

Derek Jeter. Say it once, and your mind will be flooded with countless memories of the past 20 New York Yankees seasons. Words will pop into your brain: great, classy, wonderful, amazing, legend. Now that you’ve got these wonderful thoughts in your mind, let me take a few minutes to explain what Derek Jeter means to me. Derek Jeter entered my life at a time when baseball was slowly becoming a passion of mine. A sport I wanted to play everyday for the rest of my life. A sport I worked hard at all year long to perfect. In my mind, Derek Jeter was the epitome of the ultimate baseball player, even when I watched him play live for the first time in a minor league baseball game.

The summer of 1994…that was my first recollection of Derek Jeter. I was 11 years old, a Yankees fan visiting family in Connecticut when I found myself at a New Britain Red Sox game. The Albany-Colonie Yankees were in town, and while I didn’t know much about the Yankees farm system at the time, I remembered hearing the name Derek Jeter. I recall that even as a 20 year old, Jeter had a presence on the field. While I can’t remember what he did on the field that day, I vividly remember him signing some autographs for fans near the dugout.

A year later, Jeter would get his first taste of MLB, with his first big league hit coming against the Seattle Mariners at the Kingdome. Less then a year after that, he would be named the Opening Day shortstop for the Yankees, replacing an injured Tony Fernandez. The rest is history. While Jeter was continuing to rack up hits, highlight reel defensive gems, and World Series after World Series championships, I was working extremely hard in high school to take my game to the next level. As a right-handed hitter, thanks to The Captain (and my father), I learned to hit the ball to right field on command. That Jeterian Swing was something kind of amazing!

In the spring of my junior year, I would tear a ligament in my shoulder requiring surgery that summer. I recovered and the rest of my high school career was solid, and I earned a college baseball scholarship. I endured 2 more shoulder surgeries while in college, and decided to step away from competitive baseball. It was an extremely difficult time for me, but the one thing that kept my spirits up was watching Derek Jeter play every day in the summer. His youthfulness and love for the game helped generate a new appreciation for the game. Since my playing career had winded down in the summers, I made a point to start going to many more games in The Bronx starting in the early 2000’s (when I got my license). I was lucky enough to sit in the upper deck for The Dive Game against the Red Sox in the old Yankee Stadium, to sitting 5 rows from the field for Jeter’s 3,000th hit in the new Yankee Stadium.

I have been a very fortunate fan. Derek Jeter has helped lodge memories into my head that I can’t wait to share with my children at some time. I found myself chatting with my wife the other day, trying to explain why Derek Jeter’s retirement is hitting me like a ton of bricks. My friends and I grew up with Jeter. We experienced major milestones in our lives while Jeter played Major League Baseball for 20 years with a single team. Since he first stepped on the field as a New York Yankee, I graduated middle school, played varsity baseball, earned a college baseball scholarship, went to college, graduated from college, got a job, received a promotion, became engaged, got married, and bought a house. There will be a major hole in the lives of so many Yankees fans for quite some time, but for now, let’s give thanks to a man that provided countless memories on and off the field, a man who gave his heart to the game, a man who will forever be remembered as a Yankee.