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Wednesday, September 24th 2008, 4:00 AM
To the end, Derek Jeter wouldn't give in. Even the other night, before what even he had to know was the last game at this Yankee Stadium, Jeter would only give valedictories about the place and about the Yankees, not the season.
"We haven't been eliminated from anything yet," Jeter said, in the first season of his life that does not make it out of the month of September.
The last at-bat at the Stadium for the Bomber captain.
Credits: Laham/Getty
Published: 09/22/2008 12:54:56
Tuesday night Jeter and the Yankees were eliminated from the postseason for the first time in a full season of baseball since 1993. They would have made the playoffs in '94 under Buck Showalter, and probably would have won the World Series that year. Then they won that wild card in 1995, put themselves back in October for the first time in 14 years, put Don Mattingly into baseball's October for the first and only time in his Yankee career.
Then along came Joe Torre, the one who must not be mentioned at Yankee Stadium, for the last Yankee dynasty, four World Series in five years and nearly five in six years until the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 in Phoenix, on a November Sunday night in 2001. And even when the Yankees couldn't get out of the first round for Torre, against the Angels and Tigers and Indians the last three years, the Yankees, the constant $200 million Yankees, with an economic advantage over the rest of the field that no team in sports has, were at least making the tournament, in what was an extraordinary run of regular-season excellence.
Until Tuesday night.
Until Jonathan Papelbon was closing out the Indians at Fenway Park, gassing Jhonny Peralta with fastballs and then coming after Victor Martinez and getting him to pop to short, make the out that put the Red Sox, defending champions of the sport, into the playoffs and eliminated the Yankees. It had to happen eventually and now it has, because this Yankee team, even wounded, did not measure up in so many ways.
"Obviously," Joe Girardi said on television, "this is not the way we wanted the season to end up."
Then Girardi said, "We're playing our best baseball right now. Unfortunately, it's a little bit late."
They played their best baseball when they had no chance of catching Boston, played their best baseball on a last home stand at the Stadium that was as much like a curtain call as anything that happened during the ceremonies of last Sunday night. The Red Sox - the genie Torre's Yankees let out of the bottle over four October nights four years ago, that comeback from 0-3 down in the American League Championship Series that changed baseball history at the Stadium and at Fenway - started playing their best baseball on Aug. 1, after they got rid of Manny Ramirez, who had turned into a bum, and turned themselves back into a real team, one with real character.
The Yankees played when it was too late, got clutch hits when it was too late. They wanted to fight when the other guys were out of the room. When they needed to show character in August, when everything was still in play, not just the wild card but first place in the AL East, they had nothing.
I kept thinking they would make a run, even without Jorge Posada and Chien-Ming Wang, even after the wonder child, Joba Chamberlain, got hurt. I kept thinking that if they were good enough to win eight in a row the way they did after the All-Star Break they were good enough - and tough enough - to go right after the Rays and the Red Sox. Only they weren't.
Another Yankee team to go in with the first-round losers of the last three years. When they got hit at the end of July and the beginning of August, they went down and stayed down until they started winning games when it was too late.
And there is plenty of blame to go around here.
I understand all the reasons Brian Cashman had for not wanting to trade prospects, and spend another small pitching fortune, on Johan Santana. But the Yankees are six games behind the Red Sox today in the standings, with five to play. For all we have talked about the runners left in scoring position, you think Santana couldn't have been six games like that all by himself?
Girardi, for all the injuries, absolutely did not do what Torre always did, which is find a way to hold his team together for 162 and get a veteran team like that across the finish line. You can say this again, and all winter:
If Torre had had exactly the kind of season Girardi did, even with all the injuries, Hank Steinbrenner would not only have fired him, he would have wanted to call back the next day and do it again.
Alex Rodriguez, for all his gaudy numbers, did not have a good season, did not ever carry the team, was a bigger stick for the tabloids than he was for Girardi. Jeter's numbers were soft. Jason Giambi is hanging numbers now and playing for a new Yankee contract, but he left an army of big runs on the bases when the Yankees still had a chance.
Robinson Cano played an entire season looking as if his head were up in the clouds. Or somewhere. The Yankees say they don't want to move him.
Think about something: Just think about how everything looks in the AL East if the Yankees had Dustin Pedroia playing second for them this season instead of Cano.
"We get a chance to do what we did last year," Pedroia said in Boston Tuesday night.
The Yankees? Last year all they did was lose in the first round again. This year they're not even good enough to do that.
Multimedia
Audio Slideshow
Yankee Stadium Goodbye
Final game at Yankee Stadium, September 21, 2008
Audio Slideshow
Final Roll Call
Bald Vinny leads the last roll call in the Yankee Stadium bleachers.
Photo Gallery
Moments to remember
Look back at some of the memorable moments and Daily News back pages from the House That Ruth Built.
Photo Gallery
The curtain closes
See all the snapshots from Yankee Stadium's final hurrah - a 7-3 Bombers win over the Baltimore Orioles.
Yankees Live Chat
Now that the Yankees have turned off the lights at the Stadium and hit the road, beat writer Mark Feinsand is ready for his final in-season chat.Wednesday at Noon.
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