Derek Jeter is coming off of what very well may be his worst season in the majors. He hit career lows in batting average (.270) and slugging percentage (.370) and only hit 10 home runs, his lowest since 2003. We as fans are now faced with hopes and fears for this season, with the need for 4 more stolen bases to pass Rickey Henderson for the all time franchise leader in stolen bases and the 3,000 mark being hit through the length of a season that will more than likely allow him to achieve these, but could still fall short of another great “Jeter” season. It will be time when he will have more eyes on him than he has ever experienced, and where his performance on a game-to-game basis will be evaluated by critics, instead of analysts. It will be a time when he has no guarantees, a time when he needs our support the most, since it is the only thing in our power that we can guarantee him.
The Hank and Hal Steinbrenner’s Bronx Bombers decided to make Jeter’s contract negotiations as difficult and public as possible with 21st century technology, beginning to stain his once perfect reputation. Yet he is one of the greatest shortstops to ever play the game. According to www.mlb.com, he has a career batting average of .314 and a career fielding percentage of .976. He is 74 hits away from reaching the 3,000 career mark, which would make him the first Yankee to do so, and to the notable baseball writers who hold the ballots for the vote to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, makes him a shoe- in.
Some of us may be wondering why a man making millions of dollars a year needs support from people he doesn’t even know. This is when we need to think back to the darker times in our lives, to the moments when we needed support in order to keep moving and doing what we needed to do. The times when we needed someone to give us that extra motivation, that ‘push,’ to keep working towards our goals. This is what Jeter is going through at this very minute. A man who is still on top of the world at the moment, but who is beginning to see the bottom. He is going through a time where his organization is beginning to show a lack of faith in him, when the ESPN analysts are beginning to question his production and reliability, when his personal life is beginning to be shown to the public eye, with his fans knowing his contract negotiations better than he does, and his mansion building is called out on national television by his very own boss.
Yet this is the same player that dived into the stands during the ’04 season to catch a potential hit in order to prevent losing a tie game to the rival Boston Red Sox, bruising and bloodying up his face and body in the act. The man who has won five World Series Rings, 1996 Rookie of the Year, is an 11- time All- Star, and was Sports Illustrated’s 2009 Sportsman of the Year. A man that came up through the farm system onto a losing team that at the time needed the spark of a young talented player to get back on track to their championship winning reputation. So we cheer for Jeter, we wear Jeter jerseys, and hang Jeter posters up in the rooms of our house because he deserves our support. We take our opportunity to come to his aid as he did for our beloved New York team in a time when they so desperately needed it, because he needs it.
