Seventeen seasons is a long time and a lot can happen in that span. Some of us can go from being in the 10th grade to graduating college, to getting their first full-time job, seeing it move and making adjustments due to circumstances beyond our control.
Along that span, you might even get a chance to see a Yankee game or two or a few hundred in person from the stands or from somewhere else in the stadium. Along the way, you might travel occasionally to a few other venues within your own city or somewhere in the Pacific Time Zone.
Wherever you’ve seen the Yankees, chances are you’ve seen Derek Jeter play and get a hit, especially since he has 3,004 of those. With the internet, you can combine having a good memory to figure out how many hits you’ve seen in person but thanks to the list compiled by the Yankee public relations, it’s pretty easy so by determination I’ve 654 of Jeter’s hits in person, which accounts for a little more than 20 percent and in case you’re wondering what I mean, keep reading.
8 – The first time I saw Jeter in person, the Yankees struggled to draw following the strike and on June 7, 1995, I was there for Jeter’s eighth career hit, a two-out infield single to shortstop Mike Bordick. Jeter was 1-for-3 that night and those who had free tickets courtesy of the Daily News, watched Andy Pettitte’s first career victory. Pettitte was there because Buck Showalter’s last pitching staff for the Yankees was riddled with injuries to the likes of Jimmy Key and Melido Perez.
58-59 – The next time I saw Jeter get a hit was nearly a year later in an otherwise forgettable 12-7 loss to Toronto. It was not that forgettable for Jeter though as his 58th hit was a solo home run of Pat Hentgen and that went down as his first Yankee Stadium home run. Jeter then had hit 59 with an infield single to Domingo Cedeno, so this was the first multi-hit game seen in person.
453 – When you get so many hits, you get some off so many types of pitchers from the superstar to those whose taste of the majors is brief. On May 28, 1998 Brian Barkley made the first of his six career appearances for the Red Sox and the second of 16 hits allowed was a single to left by Jeter in the eighth inning.
465 – One of the weird things about interleague play is how it tests certain people’s rooting interest. By now, you know Met fans would never root for the Yankees but on June 23, 1998 what if your team was 8 ½ games behind the Braves, who were in the Bronx that night, what team do you cheer for? The person I was with couldn’t quite get over this and rooted for the Braves during their 7-2 victory while booing when Jeter hit a solo home run off Tom Glavine.
470 – Five days later was the first time I saw a Met-Yankee game in person, so I saw Jeter’s career exploits in the "Subway Series" for the first time. Jeter had a sixth inning single in a 2-1 game that was decided in the bottom of the ninth on a sacrifice fly and games like this eventually led to six meetings between the teams.
536-537 – By mid-August the Yankees were cruising towards their 90th victory and on August 6, 1998, they reached it in style with a Bernie Williams upper deck shot in the ninth off Xavier Hernandez. Jeter had a hand in the 6-5 victory with three hits, including a two-run home run in the first off future teammate Esteban Loaiza.
628-630 – A 10-1 game in early-May can be a routine affair especially in rainy weather except this night Jeter had a five-RBI night with three coming on a three-run home run off Seattle’s Mac Suzuki and that made Hideki Irabu a winner, especially when Jeter also had a two-run single off a pitcher named Eric Weaver in this May 7, 1999 game.
685-686 – Four years after giving up the first hit, Tim Belcher had moved on to the Angels and in a 4-2 victory he gave up five hits in eight innings with one being a single to Jeter. Jeter also had another hit off Troy Percival that loaded the bases in the ninth but nothing developed out of it on June 20, 1999.
1060-1064 – Jeter has three five-hit regular season games and this was the first on May 23, 2001. It was a few days after graduating college and during the mini-break I had set for myself and working for SportsTicker in Jersey City. That night David Cone returned as a Red Sox and Jeter’s night began with a first-inning double to right field. In the third he singled and did so again in the fifth. In the seventh, he took care of the home run by going deep against Tim Wakefield and in the eighth he reached on an infield single against Rod Beck.
1092 – June 26, 2001 – There’s nothing really memorable about a June loss to the Indians except when it’s the first time you stepped into a major league press box, doing so on a day off to earn a little extra money. Other than having one of those day of game passes and doing pitch-by-pitch over the phone, I don’t remember much, not even Jeter’s single in the first off Charles Nagy. All I remember is reading some of the quotes that appeared in the story over the phone.
You get the idea, this list could go on and go past the 3,000 words that Joe Posnanski wrote for Sports Illustrated, so this is some of the cliff notes version or the one that won’t keep someone up to 4 AM compiling it.
Obviously everyone else remembers hits for various reasons such a games attended with best friends, girlfriends/boyfriends, parents. The more notable ones have been documented all over the place, but 17 years worth of hits is a lifetime for some, half a lifetime for others and a significant part of watching and following baseball in New York for the last two decades.
Starting with the 2005 season, I became more of a regular at the stadium, especially in the part that gets you access to the clubhouse. It was a good way to do something on the side and meet numerous people along the way while Jeter is getting hits in front of your eyes and ears.
While keeping score of hundreds of Yankee games, I’ve seen things such as hit number 2,000, a little knubber down in front of the catcher (Paul Bako) that was ruled one-and-one (a hit and error). It was ruled that way because the field was wet; Bako rushed his throw to beat a hustling Jeter. The only thing that could have spoiled to moment was a loss and that’s what happened when the Royals wound up with a 7-6 win that was one of several Friday games delayed by rain.
"A hit’s a hit," Jeter said that night. "But we should have won this game. We let a couple of opportunities get away.
"You appreciate the fans and their reaction, but at the time we were losing. The percentages were on their side to win,"
A month later on June 25, 2006, Jeter had hits 2,026 and 2,027 off a rookie named Anibal Sanchez in the second game of a Sunday day-night doubleheader against the Marlins. Joe Girardi managed the Marlins that night and saw Sanchez allow two hits to Jeter, one extra-base hit in front of 6,809 fans.
"This was like my dream," Sanchez said that night. "All the time when I was a little kid, I dreamed about pitching in Yankee Stadium. That was a great opportunity the Marlins gave me."
Various circumstances bring people chances to see these hits, whether you’re one of the pitchers giving them up, one of the people writing about it or one of the people sitting in the stands. People dream about seeing it in some capacity and Sanchez’s words that night speak to that.
Of course any Jeter-related piece would be unwise to neglect his contributions in moments of others such as Mariano Rivera. Rivera went from 400 to 500 saves in a span of slightly under three years. The 400th save was July 16, 2006 and Jeter helped the cause with a first-inning home run off current teammate Freddy Garcia, which was hit number 2,052 during a season that Jeter batted .342
Number 500 was June 28, 2009 at Citi Field and despite battling a cold most of the weekend and not playing the previous two days, Jeter couldn’t miss this and he helped Rivera with a base hit in the first inning off Livan Hernandez during a three-run first inning that was hit 2,624 during a year Jeter batted .334.
"He’s the definition of consistency,".
Those were some of Jeter’s words that night about Rivera. And Saturday after his 5-for-5 performance put him over 3,000 hits, those were some of the words coming from Rivera and others as people tried to define the significance of the milestone in a year that has generated so much chatter and content for the wrong reasons and the kind that make you want to turn the radio to FM and turn off the internet sometimes.
It is not easy to stand in there and face the array of pitches coming from 60 feet away. It is not easy to try and guess the next pitch but 3,004 times Jeter has guessed correctly or at least gotten enough of his bat on pitches and because of that, he has joined a club with 28 members out of thousands of people who have tried to do the same on the major league level.
Follow Larry Fleisher on twitter: @larryfleisher
