At new Stadium, Yankee captain Derek Jeter hears that old roar from the crowd

By Mike Lupica
The Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/
Saturday, September 12th 2009, 4:00 AM

He had more hits than Lou Gehrig now and that meant more hits than any Yankee ever had. But this wasn't about the number, 2,722. This was about No. 2 of the Yankees, who is what they still want the Yankees to mean, what they still want the Yankees to be.

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: Derek Jeter(notes) #2 of the New York Yankees acknowledges the crowd after hitting a single to right field in the third inning during a game against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium on September 11, 2009 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Jeter's hit was his 2,722nd, passing Lou Gehrig's all-time club record of 2,721. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

The Yankees came for Jeter now. First they were up on the top of the dugout steps and then on the field when the ball was past Scott and into right. Now they were slowly walking toward first base. Mo Rivera was there, and Jorge Posada, and Andy .Pettitte, who have done so much winning with Jeter. And you imagined Paul O'Neill with them, and Bernie, and Tino Martinez, too.

They hugged him, one by one. Mo said something to him, so did Posada. The ovation would not stop. Above it all, they were chanting Jeter's name, the way the bleachers do in the top of the first, only it wasn't just the bleachers now, it was the whole place. There have been so many comebacks this season, and so many times when the crowd over here tried to sound like sellouts used to sound on the other side of 161st St. But the place had never sounded like this. This sound for Jeter.

The Yankees finally left the field. The people would not stop cheering, would not stop chanting Jeter's name. Now he took off his helmet and waved it at the crowd, and then he pointed into the crowd. It only made the place louder.

"You are going to hear something tonight," Mo Rivera had said before the game. "From all the years."

Now here it was, bottom of the third, Yankees ahead 3-1, Jeter with the hit that put him past Gehrig. So much of this over the last week has been silly, out of proportion to the record. This was not. This wasn't marketing or hype now. This was real now at the Stadium.

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: Derek Jeter(notes) #2 of the New York Yankees hits a single to right field in the third inning during a game against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium on September 11, 2009 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Jeter's hit was his 2,722 passing Lou Gehrig's all-time club record of 2,721. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

This wasn't about Jeter now being alone in 53rd place on baseball's list of all-time hit leaders, about to pass Roberto Alomar and Tony Perez, the next two guys ahead of him. This wasn't about a media-generated - and newspaper-generated - hysteria about 2,722, as though somehow it were the same as Jeter trying to hit in 57 consecutive games. That is just the way it goes now. Any record with the Yankees has to be bigger than anybody else's.

"I remember looking at the media guide a bunch of years ago," Jeter said in front of his locker Friday afternoon. "And that's when I realized that the Yankees never had anybody who had 3,000 hits."

You know all this. Ruth started out as a pitcher. Gehrig died young. DiMaggio gave up part of his prime to World War II, and retired after 13 seasons. Mantle's body betrayed him. None got to 3,000. Jeter just keeps going. In the bottom of the fourth, he got another single to right, and got himself an RBI.

"It's never been easy lasting a long time in New York," he said Friday afternoon.

He showed up for good in 1996 and the Yankees won it all and won three more times through October of 2000 and he became the face of the franchise as much as any player ever has. Friday night was about that. You can only imagine what it will be like around here when he does get closer to 3,000.

None of this was Jeter's doing. Or the Yankees' doing. The media lost its head over this one. There is no big game for the Yankees until October. The Gehrig record gave everybody a chance to have a party. It ended Friday night, after a long rain delay, in the third against the Orioles, a single to right by the biggest sports star in town.

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: Derek Jeter(notes) #2 of the New York Yankees is congratulated by Mariano Rivera(notes) after hitting a single to right field in the third inning during a game against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium on September 11, 2009 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Jeter's hit was his 2,722 passing Lou Gehrig's all-time club record of 2,721. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

He did not show up a star across the street, or a phenom. He became a star, on a Yankee team that did win four times in five seasons, won 12 playoff series in those years, and took its place with the greatest Yankee teams of all time. Through it all, you could see Jeter on any of those other teams, all the way back to Ruth and Gehrig.

He is not the player Ruth was, or Gehrig, or Mantle, or even Mo Rivera. A-Rod's numbers will all be bigger someday. Jeter isn't Joe DiMaggio. But in so many ways, the way he has carried himself, what he has meant, he has been this era's DiMaggio. He has handled the attention, the Yankee-ness of it all, better than DiMaggio could have if he played now, with this kind of coverage, with this much media, with the Yankees this big. DiMaggio wasn't built for it, even as an old man. Jeter always has been, from the time he was a kid.

The Yankees have tried too hard this season to move history and tradition across the street. People sure tried hard this week to make it seem like Jeter was trying to break DiMaggio's 56. But it was all real enough Friday night in the bottom of the third, when the Stadium cheered Jeter the way it did. And when he pointed back at them, it was as if the captain of the Yankees was cheering them back.