Befitting his entire career, the idolatry around Derek Jeter entered its crescendo phase yesterday with the announcement that 2014 would be his final season. Expect the crescendo to remain in effect, nationwide, through October.
Derek Jeter is one of the great players of all time, warranting a Hall of Fame bust. He will get that in 2019, by which time he will also have achieved sainthood, if not by the Catholic Church than in the conclave of public opinion.
The narrative of Jeter the great man, transcendent teammate, clutch performer, etc., etc., etc. has been written, validated and parroted so often that critical thinking is no longer expected or even desired.
Many Jeter worshippers will agree that one play above all others encapsulates his career. They are correct about the play, but not about why. It is the catch in a regular-season game against the Red Sox in 2004 in which he dove into the stands to snare a foul ball and came away with it despite a collision with metal seats that left him bloody faced and glassy eyed.
The collective wisdom about the catch is that it demonstrated his resolve, his team play, his guttiness, his selflessness, his hustle -- take your pick or choose them all. It catapulted him, or rather vindicated the catapulting that had already occurred, into the stratosphere of greats.
It is a microcosm of Jeter's career for a different reason: it is grossly exaggerated in the public mind's eye. In fact, as has been documented ad nauseum in this space before, Jeter made a lovely running grab roughly 10 feet from the stands before his momentum brought him to the railing. By his own admission on 60 Minutes, he hoisted himself into the seats in hopes of landing in someone's lap, having previously that season flipped over the railing and onto the concrete.
Like Jeter's entire career, there was greatness there, but it has been magnified and distorted, and has taken on an undeserved grandiosity that is now simply understood as fact in the collective consciousness.
Isn't it enough that Jeter is one of the five or six best shortstops of all time, that he's the all-time Yankee hit king, that he owns a .312 batting average and .381 OBP, 348 steals at a 79% clip, 13 seasons of 100+ runs scored, 94 offensive wins against replacement and all the other records? Must we lard his accomplishments with fatuous ideas about his fielding ability, his "clutchness," his leadership skills and his character? There is ample evidence that he has been a below-average fielding shortstop, he captained the worst collapse in baseball playoff history, he was lucky to play for the richest and most talent-stocked franchise in the game and he is a gentleman and a scholar who treats others with respect, but is never mistaken for Nelson Mandella.
Hats off to Derek Jeter for a spectacular career, as no doubt will happen, endlessly, during his farewell tour around the leagues this year. It hasn't started and it is already getting old.
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