October 13, 2001. Game 3 of the ALDS. The New York Yankees are down 0-2 to the Oakland A's, and if they lose this game, the dynasty is dead. Bottom of the seventh, Yankees clinging to a 1-0 lead, two outs, Jeremy Giambi on first. Terrence Long singles to right. Shane Spencer grabs the ball and uncorks a relay throw that sails over both cutoff men -- over Tino Martinez, over Alfonso Soriano -- heading into no-man's land on the first-base side. The run is going to score. The series is going to end.
And then Derek Jeter appears from absolutely nowhere.
What Was He Doing There?
That's the question everyone asked then, and it's the question that still makes this play special 25 years later. The shortstop has no business being near the first-base line on a relay throw from right field. Zero. His position on that play is somewhere around the left side of the infield. He should be watching, not involved.
But Jeter wasn't watching. He was sprinting -- a full-speed dash across the diamond, reading Spencer's throw the moment it left his hand, processing in real time that the ball was going to sail past the cutoff men and that somebody needed to be there to catch it. He caught the ball on the run near the first-base line, and in one motion -- backhand, like a football lateral -- flipped it to Jorge Posada at home plate. Posada caught the flip and slapped a tag on Giambi.
Giambi didn't slide. He just... ran into the tag. (I've watched this play a hundred times, and the not-sliding part still freakin' baffles me. You're the tying run in an elimination game, and you don't slide?)
Out. Inning over. Lead preserved. Season saved.
The Instinct Question
Jeter always said he'd practiced that exact play -- backing up overthrows in relay situations. He knew Spencer had a cannon but wasn't always accurate, and he'd put himself in position to be a safety net. That's the part people don't talk about enough. The play looks like pure instinct, and it was -- but it was instinct built on preparation. Jeter had thought about this scenario before it happened.
That doesn't make it less incredible. It makes it more. The guy put himself in position to make a play that no other shortstop in baseball would've even considered, and then he executed it with a backhand flip while running full speed. The timing had to be perfect. A half-second late and Giambi scores standing up. A half-second early and the flip doesn't reach Posada.
It was perfect.
What It Saved
The Yankees won Game 3, 1-0. They won Game 4. They won Game 5. Three straight wins after going down 0-2. The flip play didn't just save one game -- it saved an entire postseason run. The Yankees went on to beat the 116-win Seattle Mariners in five games in the ALCS, then pushed Arizona to seven games in the World Series.
Without Jeter's flip, none of that happens. No Mr. November. No back-to-back ninth-inning comebacks at the Stadium. No Game 7 heartbreak. The defending champion Yankees go quietly in the Division Series, and the dynasty ends with a whisper instead of a scream.
The Oakland Side
The A's were the early Moneyball team -- Billy Beane's squad, built on walks and on-base percentage and doing more with less. They'd won the first two games at home and were 27 outs from ending the Yankees' run. And then one play, one moment of absurd athletic intuition from a shortstop standing where no shortstop should've been, changed everything.
Jeremy Giambi never adequately explained why he didn't slide. (His third-base coach, Ron Washington, waved him home and expected him to go in hard. He didn't.) It became one of those baseball decisions that follows a player forever -- the kind of thing that gets brought up in every interview, every retrospective, every time someone mentions October 2001.
The play happened 32 days after September 11. The Yankees were playing for more than a championship that fall, and everyone in the building -- everyone watching at home -- felt it. When Posada slapped that tag on Giambi, the Stadium (well, Oakland's Coliseum, but the reaction back in New York was louder) exhaled. The season wasn't over. Not yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was Derek Jeter's flip play?
On October 13, 2001, in Game 3 of the ALDS against the Oakland Athletics, Jeter sprinted across the infield to catch an errant relay throw from right fielder Shane Spencer. In one motion, he flipped the ball backhand to catcher Jorge Posada, who tagged out Jeremy Giambi at home plate. The play preserved a 1-0 Yankees lead in the seventh inning of an elimination game.
Why didn't Jeremy Giambi slide on the flip play?
Giambi never fully explained the decision. Third-base coach Ron Washington waved him home expecting him to slide, but Giambi ran upright into Posada's tag. Had he slid, he likely would've been safe and scored the tying run. It remains one of the most second-guessed baserunning choices in postseason history.
Did the Yankees come back to win the 2001 ALDS?
Yes. After losing Games 1 and 2 in Oakland, the Yankees won Games 3, 4, and 5 to take the series 3-2. Jeter's flip play in Game 3 is widely credited with turning the entire series around.
I still think about what would've happened if Spencer's throw had been on target -- if Martinez or Soriano had cut it off cleanly and thrown home. Giambi probably scores anyway. The game ties. The series probably ends in Oakland. And the flip play never happens.
But Spencer's throw sailed. And Jeter was there. Because of course he was.