There was no expectation Thursday night that Derek Jeter would end his final home game with a thunderclap of a hit. This has, after all, been his worst full season, statistically.
But there he was, acting as if it was 1996, hitting an opposite-field, game-winning single in the bottom of the ninth against the Baltimore Orioles to punctuate his 20 seasons in pinstripes.
The clear parallel is to Ted Williams's final at-bat, on Sept. 28, 1960, at Fenway Park, in his final home plate appearance, wrapping up with a scintillating coda.
Like Jeter, Williams knew he was retiring. A farewell ceremony preceded his final game.
'Baseball has been the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me,' he said.
It was a dank Wednesday afternoon in a pretty good season for Williams. Entering the game, he was hitting .316, with 28 home runs and 71 runs batted in. By the time he came to the plate in the eighth inning, he had walked once and flied out twice. The Red Sox were trailing the Baltimore Orioles, 4-2. The fans were applauding, as if they might never stop, delaying Jack Fisher's first pitch to Williams.
John Updike, whose 'Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu' essay would appear the next month in The New Yorker, recalled in his piece that there was 'no calling, no whistling, just an ocean of handclaps, minute after minute, burst after burst, crowing and running together in continuous succession like the pushes of surf at the edge of the sand.
'It was a somber and considered tumult.'
Finally, the umpire commanded Fisher to pitch. Williams struck the third pitch onto the canopy that covered the relievers' bench, more than 400 feet from home plate. The Orioles were still up, 4-3. Williams ran the bases, head down, without acknowledging the cheers from the crowd of 10,454, as was his style.
He refused urgings to return to the field for a curtain call and reluctantly returned to left field for the top of the ninth. But he was quickly replaced with Carroll Hardy by Manager Pinky Higgins so that fans could shower Williams with another chorus of adulation. He did not tip his hat or wave. The Red Sox rallied in the ninth to win, 5-4.
Williams never played again.
'There's nothing more I can do,' he said after the game.
The Red Sox headed to the Bronx for their final series of the season at Yankee Stadium, but Williams did not join them. The Yankees swept three games, on their way to losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. The Red Sox finished 65-89, seventh place in the American League.
Jeter's single added to his lore but did not advance the Yankees to the postseason. They are missing it for the second year in a row.
But the hit set off a wave of exultation at Yankee Stadium, where Jeter allowed himself to bathe in the cheers of the 48,613 fans, who were primed all season to attend the finale. He was hugged by his jubilant teammates as if he had won the World Series. He visited his shortstop position after the game, crouching briefly in a prayer of thanks. He spoke expressively afterward, as he never had, to the news media.
The game was seen by more viewers, an average of 1.25 million, than any other in the YES Network's history.
Jeter will do, in the end, what Williams would not. Rather than end his career at home with a memorable hit, Jeter will accompany his team to Fenway, where they will play a season-ending series against the Red Sox. But he will not play shortstop again, reasoning that the last view of the position he wanted was the one at Yankee Stadium. Instead, he will be a designated hitter, a choice Williams did not have.
A Yankee icon is giving Red Sox fans the last word on his last game.
Post By http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/sports/baseball/in-derek-jeters-big-hit-an-echo-of-ted-williamss-final-swing.html
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