New York Post
http://www.nypost.com
June 13, 2011
NEW YORK - JUNE 12: Derek Jeter(notes) #2 of the New York Yankees hits an RBI single in the bottom of the eight for his second run batted in against the Cleveland Indians on June 12, 2011 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
Life is a lot like baseball. You need to appreciate the little things to make the most of it.
That’s why Derek Jeter’s performance yesterday was so fascinating; the essence of his baseball genius. He is in the stretch run in his Quest for 3,000. There were so many little things Jeter did right yesterday when the Yankees needed him most, when their 9-1 Bat Day victory over the Indians at Yankee Stadium was still a tight game.
There were hits No. 2,992 and 2,993, both singles, and those hits kept alive the chance for Jeter to collect No. 3,000 at home. He has four games to gather seven hits.
But there was more. In the third, after Brett Gardner led off with a double, Jeter moved him to third on a long fly to right. Gardner scored on Curtis Granderson’s sacrifice fly to put the Yankees on top, 1-0.
In the fifth, after another Gardner double, Jeter flared a single to right, scoring the speedy Gardner to put the Yankees up, 2-0.
“You always have a chance to get a hit,” Jeter told The Post, in a quiet corner of the clubhouse. “But you only have one chance to win this game.”
That is what he is all about. That says it all about Jeter’s approach, the same approach he has had from the day he got his first major league hit on May 30, 1995, in Seattle off Tim Belcher.
“That’s the foundation of Derek Jeter, do the little things,” Mariano Rivera said of his championship core teammate. “That’s what makes a ballplayer.”
That’s how you win five World Series rings. The milestones are magnificent, but it’s the little things that make the difference between winning and losing.
In the eighth, Jeter bounced a single up the middle that again scored Gardner.
When Jeter becomes the 28th player to join the 3,000-hit club it will be a glorious moment, no matter where it takes place.
“It’s going to mean a lot,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He’ll be the first Yankee to ever do it in a Yankee uniform. He’s meant championships to this organization. He’s meant professionalism. He plays the game the right way. He’s meant a lot to this franchise.
“I think it goes down to his heart,” Girardi added, “the way he plays the game and the way he prepares. Derek’s got a lot of heart. He plays the game to win and I think that’s what it comes down to with him.”
Jeter’s best smash of the day was caught, a drive to the center-field wall in the first. Jeter cannot be defined by statistics. That’s not who he is at the age of 36, soon to be 37, or when he first came to the Yankees.
What he learned a long time ago was that by focusing on little things, that takes the pressure off the big things in the game. That’s his secret.
Of doing those little things, Jeter said, “That’s my job.”
He even tried to bunt a runner over. Whatever it takes.
After the game, he admitted 3,000 is on his mind, but only because of the chatter it’s created.
“Everyone is talking about it when I’m on deck and before the game, so I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t thinking about it,” he said. “But I’m not trying to do anything different.”
Jeter has always had the good sense to understand who he is as a player and not change. He is the definition of consistency. Of his 2,993 hits, 1,506 have come at home, 1,487 have come on the road.
Getting hit No. 3,000 at home, of course, would be special.
“I would love to do it here, but all I can control is having good at-bats and trying to hit the ball hard and hopefully find some holes,” Jeter said. “We have a few more games here, we’ll see what happens.”
If not here, the milestone will come at Wrigley Field over the weekend or in Cincinnati the next series. Every game, though, Derek Jeter will try to do the little things.
Take time to appreciate it.
kevin.kernan@nypost.com
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