Hot News: Derek Jeter Plays Final Game at a Friendly Fenway Park

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.

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.

'I don't know many people who could really unite a crowd like he did today,' Girardi said later. 'Such big rivals, so much history between the teams, but you would have thought it was one team today.'

The Red Sox marched onto the field to greet Jeter, one by one, in the ceremony. Joe Kelly, who on Saturday became the last pitcher to strike out Jeter, posed for a selfie with him.

Jeter lined out to shortstop in the first inning before beating out that final single in the third that scored a run. Girardi looked to first base, where Jeter signaled that he was through. McCann lumbered out to run for him, hugging Jeter.

'Congratulations on everything,' McCann said he told Jeter. 'You're the best.'

Jeter stopped near the mound, telling Buchholz that he had enjoyed competing against him, something he could not say in the pregame ceremony, when Buchholz was warming up. Jeter crossed the third-base line without stopping and hugged his coaches and teammates. He waved his cap. His mother, Dorothy, wiped away tears in a box above the grandstand. But Jeter did not cry.

'My emotions were so all over the place on Thursday in New York,' he said. 'When I got here, I was ready. I was ready for my career to be over with. I'm happy I had an opportunity to come and play here for a couple of games, but I'm ready for this to be the end.'

Jeter watched the rest of the game from the dugout - his old friend Bernie Williams played guitar in the outfield during the seventh-inning stretch - and the fans chanted Jeter's name as the Yankees finished a 9-5 victory. Jeter spoke later about his legacy, saying he hoped to be known for respecting the game and those around it and, of course, for being a Yankee.

He will appear this week on the 'Today' show and 'The Tonight Show,' and he will take a vacation. He will rest after a season of 145 games; as Tom Verducci notes in Sports Illustrated, only one Hall of Famer in the last century, Al Kaline, played more games in his final season.

But mostly Jeter is free. There are no baseball obligations, no schedule to follow to prepare for another season. On Saturday, when Jeter struck out, Kelly blew a 99-m.p.h. fastball past him. There will be no more of those, either.

Jeter recalled a moment a few years ago when, on his way to lunch in San Francisco with Jorge Posada, he saw the former shortstop Shawon Dunston. Jeter asked Dunston how life was going, and Dunston said it was stress-free. No more sliders to hit.

Asked to describe his career, Jeter began with the word 'fun.' But it was only fun because he worked hard enough to get the most from his talent. There would have been no records, no championships, no adoration if he had not done all he could to ward off as much of the hard stuff as possible.

So what does Jeter do now, as he begins his life as a former baseball player?

'I don't know,' he said. 'That's a good thing. I don't know.'

Post By http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/sports/baseball/derek-jeter-plays-final-game-at-a-friendly-fenway-park.html