BOSTON — Sunlight bathed the field when Derek Jeter came to bat Sunday for the last time in the major leagues. Only the home plate area, from which Jeter stared down Boston starter Clay Buchholz, was in shadows.
Jeter took a strike and a ball, smacked a ball foul and then beat a 93-mile-an-hour fastball off the plate.
The ball hung in the air for three seconds. The third baseman leapt for it and tipped it with his bare hand. The ball fell to the Fenway Park grass as Jeter raced through first base, with no throw. This was his 3,465th and final hit, a figure surpassed by only five others in history.
Jeter already had his magic moment on Thursday, in his Yankee Stadium finale, when he played shortstop for the last time and singled home the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. He could have sat out this series, like the Red Sox great Ted Williams, who homered in his last at-bat at Fenway, in 1960, and did not even travel to New York to wrap up the year.But Jeter said he owed it to the fans here, and the teams’ rivalry, to make an appearance. He went 1 for 2 on Saturday and again on Sunday, each hit an infield single that found its way to a Boston rookie named Garin Cecchini.
But Jeter said he owed it to the fans here, and the teams’ rivalry, to make an appearance. He went 1 for 2 on Saturday and again on Sunday, each hit an infield single that found its way to a Boston rookie named Garin Cecchini.
Cecchini was barely a year old when the Yankees drafted Jeter in 1992. He grew up in Louisiana, as a shortstop, and Jeter was his favorite player. He wears No. 70, the digits of a player who still must prove himself. It happens to be the number the Yankees assigned Jeter in spring training the year before he made the majors.
“He’s a guy you respect and you kind of want to idolize because everyone liked him,” Cecchini said. “And he was a winner. He’s won a lot of games, won championships. That’s all you want to be recognized as in this sport: a winner.”
The Yankees won five titles with Jeter, and the Red Sox won three during his career. This season, neither team made the playoffs. Given the standings, and the gripping finale in the Bronx, the weekend had the feeling of a bonus track on a masterpiece album, the way the Beatles tacked “Her Majesty,” a brief aside, on to the soaring medley that otherwise closed out “Abbey Road.”
Few of the game’s grand figures go out in style. Mickey Mantle — 46 years ago to the day, also at Fenway Park — popped out to shortstop in the first inning and never played again. Yogi Berra finished with a fielder’s choice groundout for the Mets in 1965. Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth went hitless in their final games, in the 1930s.
Jeter’s last hit did not go far, but it nudged his career average up a point, to .310, where it will sit forever. He finished with 1,923 runs scored — an evocative number in the history of the Yankees, who won their first title in 1923 — and nobody ever started more games at shortstop than Jeter’s 2,660.
With two hits on Sunday, Jeter could have tied Ty Cobb’s record for most seasons of 150 hits, with 18. Manager Joe Girardi told him of the possibility on Sunday morning, he said, believing it was his obligation. Jeter was not swayed. His plan was to bat twice and take the results, whatever they were.
“I never played the game for numbers,” he said. “So why start now?”
Jeter arrived in the visitors’ clubhouse at 10:50 a.m., coming in on the team bus and chatting along the concourse with Tim Wakefield, a former Red Sox knuckleballer whom he faced more than any other pitcher. He passed souvenir stands that sold T-shirts and caps and pink foam fingers commemorating his career. He was not an enemy this weekend.
He dressed in his usual Fenway locker, the last in a row of four green stalls, closest to the tunnel leading to the field. He laughed with Brett Gardner and Chris Young and spoke with Jeff Idelson, the president of the Hall of Fame. He came across the young son of the Yankees’ pitching coach, Larry Rothschild, patting him on the shoulder and offering his standard greeting: “What’s up, buddy?”
Jeter smiled a lot during batting practice, the fans practically spilling onto the dirt track behind the cage, holding signs for him. Spike Lee and Joe Torre looked on. Jeter joined his teammates in the outfield for a silly footrace between two plodders, Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann. Teixeira won.
Soon enough came the ceremony on the field, featuring Boston sports greats like Carl Yastrzemski and Bobby Orr. Pete Frates, the former Boston College baseball captain who inspired the A.L.S. Ice Bucket Challenge, was there, too, and a singer from “The Voice” serenaded Jeter with Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.”
The gifts were modest — a pair of duck boots, a base with his number on it, a signed “RE2PECT” plate from the scoreboard, a check to his foundation — and the cheers from the fans heartfelt. Jeter had been a worthy rival.
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