2009 Yankees: Derek Jeter Passes Lou Gehrig

Welcome back to the next chapter of 2009 Yankees: The Last Championship - a week-by-week remembrance of the year in which they gave us their most recent World Series title. Derek Jeter achieved pretty much everything a player possibly could in his career, and one that certainly stands out along with the five World Series rings was becoming the Yankees’ career hits leader, surpassing Lou Gehrig.

NEW YORK (Sept. 11, 2009) - Exactly eight years removed from the worst day in the history of our United States, the pain was still vivid when the Orioles visited Yankee Stadium on a rainy Friday night.

Hell, we’re now approaching 23 years since that awful morning when those evil assholes hijacked four jets and flew two of them into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and the memory still gives you pause whenever you wake up and it’s Sept. 11.

“You can’t help but think back,” Derek Jeter said. “I think everyone thinks back, whether you’re in this clubhouse, on this team, in New York City, I think everyone in the country looks back and gets a chance to reflect on Sept. 11. We were here in New York when it happened.”

The Yankees have never forgotten, and every year they commemorate the memory of those who lost their lives that day, not only in New York City but at the Pentagon and in that field in Pennsylvania.

On this night in the Bronx, the eighth anniversary of the tragedy, there was a moment of silence observed; behind home plate there were sailors lined up from the USS New York, a Navy stealth ship whose bow stem was constructed with more than seven tons of steel recovered from the rubble at the World Trade Center; across the outfield the flag was presented by the USS New York Naval Color Guard; and Naval musician Laura Carey sang the anthem.

There was a somberness that enveloped the huge stadium, and the weather - which delayed the first pitch for 97 minutes - did not help. But then of course Jeter changed the mood, something he seemed to do with alarming regularity during his Hall of Fame career.

In his second at bat of the night in the third inning, Jeter hit one of his trademark singles to right field, and in that moment, there was a new Yankees franchise leader in career hits as his 2,772nd moved him past the immortal Lou Gehrig. And for the more than 46,000 who stuck out the rain delay, and the one later in the night that lasted 67 minutes, they had a memory they could conjure on all future 9/11’s.

“It’s just kind of mind-boggling to know my name is next to his,” Jeter said. “I never imagined, I never dreamt of this. Your dream was always to play for the team. Once you get here, you just want to stay and try to be consistent. So this really wasn’t a part of it. The whole experience has been overwhelming.”

The countdown to Gehrig’s record had been going throughout the 2009 season because it was inevitable. But at the end, it took a while because Jeter got within three hits and then endured an 0-for-12 slump, his longest hitless streak of the year.

However, two nights earlier he had three hits in a 4-2 victory over the Rays to pull even with Gehrig and everyone knew history was close, and when the ball went through the right side, the place erupted and the Yankees poured out of their dugout to congratulate their captain.

“We were so young and started this run off at such a young age, and you knew that he was special,” said Andy Pettitte, one of the Core Four who debuted in 1995, the same season as Jeter. “You knew that he carried himself a little bit different than a lot of other guys, a lot of class, a lot of charisma, a lot of confidence for as young as he was.”

Think about this: Gehrig held this record for 70 years. By comparison, he held the consecutive games streak record for “only” 46 years before Cal Ripken broke in 1995.

And as a student of Yankee history, it was not lost on Jeter the greatness of the man he surpassed, a captain just like him.

“Every story you hear about him, he was a classy person and a great teammate,” Jeter said. “You feel fortunate to be mentioned with that player. We’ve had a lot of great players in this organization who have been well-respected by their peers. You don’t want to say one person is more respected than another, but he’s about as high on that list as you can get. To have the opportunity to share a record with him makes you feel good.”

Jeter was born in Pequannock, New Jersey, and though he grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, he often spent summers with his grandparents back in northern New Jersey and he became a Yankee fan, thanks mostly to his grandmother. Dot Connors was a lifelong fan who grew up cheering for Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, and when Babe Ruth passed away in 1948, she was one of the thousands who made the trek to the Bronx for the public viewing of Ruth’s casket at the stadium.

In his eighth-grade yearbook, student were asked to make predictions for what they would be doing in 10 years and next to Jeter’s name it said that he would be playing for the Yankees. As fate would have it, the Yankees selected him in the first round of the 1992 amateur draft and this was the only organization he has ever known.

The lineage of Yankee greatness starts with Ruth and is connected through the eras by Gehrig, DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Mantle, Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Don Mattingly and Jeter, it continues with Aaron Judge. Jeter was his generation’s chosen one and as his career rocketed forward, it was inevitable that he would have his number 2 retired on a plaque out in Monument Park.

Jeter was like a matinee idol to the throngs who flocked to Yankee Stadium, but more importantly he was a winner. Despite all the individual accolades he accrued - the all-time Yankee leader in games, at bats, hits, doubles, stolen bases and total times on base, all of which led to the ultimate honor when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame - nothing ever mattered to Jeter more than a championship.

For so many of today’s players the game is all about money and statistics and fame and ego. Jeter made hundreds of millions of dollars, yes, and very few baseball players were more famous or put up more prodigious statistics, but it was all about the ring for him, and he won five during his time in pinstripes.

David Cone was Jeter’s teammate for four of the championships, and even with several veterans on those late 1990s teams, he said Jeter just naturally ascended into a leadership position almost from the moment he arrived.

“It is really remarkable to see how he has handled everything at such a young age,” Cone said in 1999, the year Jeter led MLB with 219 hits, then had 18 more in the postseason. “It’s hard to fathom the type of mass appeal that Derek has. It’s hard to compare to anyone. It’s enormous popularity. More than any I’ve seen of any young player.

“There’s a long list of young players in similar situations who have made mistakes. It’s tough for me to identify because I make those mistakes or have made them. Jeter came in very grounded from day one and has remained level-headed. He has watched and learned from other people’s mistakes.”

Paul O’Neill, long considered the heart and soul of that Yankee dynasty, added in that same story, “I don’t know that he knows how good he is going to become. I hate to put that on people because it puts a lot of pressure on what they’re supposed to become. But he’s a great player right now, and he’s getting better.”

The game against the Orioles meant nothing because even with their 10-4 loss, the Yankees lead was 8.5 games over the Red Sox with 20 remaining. A-Rod hit a three-run homer in the top of the first, but thereafter, the Yankees disintegrated after Jeter’s milestone.

Pettitte pitched the first five innings and left with a 4-3 lead, but relievers Damaso Garcia and Edwar Ramirez combined to give up seven runs, but while Jeter probably was annoyed by the loss, no one else was.

When he was asked what he would remember about the night, he said, “The fans. It wasn’t ideal conditions tonight, and for the fans to stick around, it really means a lot. Since day one they’ve always been very supportive. They’re just as much a part of this as I am.”

Here’s how the rest of Week 22 went for the Yankees:

Sept. 7: The Yankees dominated a doubleheader against the Rays, sweeping 4-1 and 11-1 at the stadium. In the first game, the Yankees broke a 1-1 tie with three runs in the eighth, a rally that featured two sacrifice flies and a Tampa Bay error. In the nightcap, down 1-0 in the third the Yankees erupted for eight runs highlighted by a three-run homer by Mark Teixeira.

Sept. 8: The Yankees blew a 2-0 lead by giving up solo home runs to Evan Longoria in the seventh and Jason Bartlett in the eighth, but Nick Swisher hit a walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth for a 3-2 victory that put them a season-high 40 games over .500.

Sept. 9: A four-game sweep of the Rays as the Yankees scored four times in the eighth, the last three coming on a home run by Jorge Posada for a 4-2 victory.

Sept. 12: The Orioles pulled within 32 games of the Yankees with a 7-3 victory as they bombed A.J. Burnett for six runs in the second inning and cruised. The big blow was a grand slam by Brian Roberts, not a guy who was ever known for his home run power.

Sept. 13: The Yankees avoided a sweep by routing Baltimore 13-3 as Jeter had three hits and scored three runs. It was a tight 5-3 game until the Yankees scored eight runs in the eighth as Hideki Matsui hit a three-run bomb and Melky Cabrera and Teixeira each had two-run doubles.

NEXT SATURDAY: Nick Swisher wasn’t one of the Yankees’ A-list stars in 2009, but he made key contributions all through the year in his first season in pinstripes, plus he brought an infectious optimism that permeated the clubhouse.