Hail to Derek Jeter!
Here is a poem I wrote soon after 9/11.
If you remember, the New York Yankees came up short that year, but during the team's efforts to win the World Series, Jeter made a play that helped ease the scars of 9/11 -- for New Yorkers and the whole country. If this guy can do this, maybe things aren't so bad, one might have thought.
That is the best play ever? part of the above subject line.
One of the best players ever has to do with Jeter being tied with Hank Aaron for the most consistent 150-hit seasons, 17.
Aaron's remarkable achievement covered the years 1955 to 1971. Jeter's began in 1996 and continued into the 2012 season.
For both men, the feat is truly astounding.
Also, hail to my old Executive Sports Editor Fred Turner at my old Florida daily newspaper, who gave me a sports job when I really needed it. Note: about the same time, he also hired a certain Mitch Albom, giving him a fulltime job after the freelance work he had been doing (Mitch didn't drive back in those days -- I would give him rides home late at night in my 1967 VW Beetle that had a '73 Super Beetle engine with Kadron exhaust that had more horsepower than a '55 Porsche my mechanicc Marshall Painter told me).
| NEW YORK: AUTUMN 2001 Up from the ashes with a toss from Jeter coming from nowhere to save the game and the season (the best play ever?), The Men in Pinstripes rising from the dust of buildings and lost lives, The American Spirit resurrected with The Sport of Baseball and The New York Yankees and The Miracle at Home. (October 18, 2001) | ||
