Well, hard to add a whole lot to what happened yesterday -- or what has been said since:
Derek Jeter crossed the 3,000-hit threshold in just about the most dramatic way possible -- on a home run, part of a 5-for-5 day (including the game-winning hit), in front of a frenzied crowd.
You can hate the Yankees and/or you can loathe the drenching love in the media for Jeter, but it's hard to begrudge his career, his accomplishments and -- frankly -- how he goes about his business.
Joe Sheehan said this in his newsletter yesterday about Jeter: When we look back, Jeter will be the poster player of this generation -- not Bonds or Pujols or anything related to steroids.
That's probably a good thing. In Jeter, we have a guy who put up great stats, won a lot of games, won a lot of important games and conducted himself with self-respect and respect for the game and its fans.
My 5-year-old son -- only discovering his sports fandom in the past few months -- recently proclaimed the Yankees are his favorite team. It's not an outrageous idea, given that we live in New York and he is surrounded by Yankees iconography, propaganda and fans.
As a Yankees-hater, that wounds me a bit. But my kid could do a lot worse than rooting for Derek Jeter, even if by the time he is 8 -- let alone a teenager -- Jeter is a distant memory.
For now, it seems reasonable that watching Jeter's 3,000th hit live and having it be as dramatic as it was will be a very acute memory for me for a very long time.
Recommended reading: SI.com's Joe Posnanski on the moment when Jeter hit No. 3,000 and what it means.
-- D.S.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
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