I like baseball, not a dedicated fan, loved the old Reds, but I will watch tonight, and I will cry, probably sob .... out of respect for a dedicated man, A TRUE PROFESSIONAL, on my list, and there are not many. He is there with Arnold Palmer, John Havlicek, bobby Orr, and a few others. Exemplary lives in their personal life and there chosen professional career. In this day and age, loyalty, in itself, is hard to find, a dedicated work ethic, a leader, and example, hard to find. I will be going back and forth between football and baseball ....
NEW YORK -- Derek Jeter will receive his ultimate lifetime achievement award at some point Thursday night, whenever Joe Girardi decides to remove him from the game and turn him over to the full house. The fans will cheer, cry and do whatever moves them to celebrate the 40-year-old New York Yankees captain, and then Jeter will leave the Bronx as an active player for the final time.
He will leave with all kinds of trophies and milestones zipped inside his travel bag, and one that shouldn't be lost under the pile. His only perfect record. Barring the sudden emergence of a hotheaded umpire fixing to break Twitter for good, Jeter will exit Yankee Stadium having played 2,903 major league games, postseason included, without earning a single ejection.
Yes, the adults in the stands have dressed their kids in jersey No. 2 because of the five championships, the 3,461 hits and the commitment to approaching every game the way Joe DiMaggio did -- as if someone out there was watching him play for the very first time. But the respect Jeter forever showed the game's authority figures at a time when that respect on ballfields across America, from Little League to the pros, was an oft-ignored suggestion, not a mandate, represented a core piece of his mass appeal.
In more than 20 years Jeter never once lost it with an umpire, a remarkable feat considering how verbal abuse of umps has long been accepted as part of the game, just like Cracker Jack, ballpark franks and the seventh-inning stretch. Not just accepted, but encouraged. Glorified, even.
