By Matt Rosenfeld
There are many things I like about sports, but one of my favorite things is that sports can mean so many different things to so many different people. For some, they’re an escape from the doldrums of life. For others, sports are a tool for teaching many life lessons. Sports can even be as simple as just having something to look forward to on Sunday.
Professional athletes, however, are a little bit different. While they, too, can trigger a lot of different emotions in people, the athletes who play the games we love often evoke emotions that can get more politicized than just the games themselves. It can get personal. Sometimes we as fans, sit on our high horses and judge professional athletes’ personal lives like we are their parents. When it comes to the individuals playing the sports we love, the thoughts we have are decreasingly pure.
Derek Jeter was, or seemed to be, the exception. Last Thursday, when Jeter ‘s fairytale-like career had the perfect denouement, a walk-off hit in his final game at Yankee Stadium, it made me realize what I’m going to miss the most about him. It’s not his abilities, which at times were way overrated. It’s not the fact he was the last real beacon of my childhood sports fandom.
I’m going to miss him mostly because, to the best of my knowledge, he is the last superstar athlete who was almost unanimously loved off the field.
There were a lot of factors that helped Jeter reach that status. He played the most prominent position on a baseball field. He played for one of the most famous franchises on the globe. He is biracial, which has always sort of kept him away from any racial vitriol. And, he somehow managed to stay out of countless cheating scandals despite playing a 20-year career in the heart of baseball’s steroid era.
I’m not saying Derek Jeter’s abilities played an insignificant role his success. It’s not easy to play 20 years of professional baseball in the biggest market and pretty much never have a negative press clipping written about you. Obviously, I didn’t look back over every story over the course of Jeter’s career, but the fact that I cannot think of a single scandal involving Jeter after 20 years is amazing.
People rag on Jeter for always saying the right thing, for not being a good quote. Even in his most vulnerable interviews over his final days as a Yankee, he thanked the fans over and over, hitting cliche after cliche. Some think it isn’t genuine, and it may be boring, but you’ve never seen The Captain causing strife within a locker room. He has always done what’s right for his team. You don’t get that too often today One sign I saw on TV during the seemingly 24/7 Derek Jeter coverage last week read, “My grandpa told me stories about Babe Ruth, I’ll tell my kids stories about Derek Jeter.” That really struck a chord with me. I started to think about what athletes I admire and want to tell my kids about, and every one that came to mind had a caveat attached.
I thought about telling my future child about the unparalleled athleticism of LeBron James, for example. I thought about tellin them how Lebron could do everything on a basketball court and influence a game any way he wanted.
Then I pictured him telling his little friends about LeBron James. And then I realized there would undoubtedly be somebody who bought up “The Decision” and the mess that followed for LeBron.
There really aren’t that many transcendent professional players worth telling your children about. There are even less that don’t come with an asterisk attached. Jeter is one of them.
I’ll miss No. 2 on the field. I’ll never forget the five rings, the clutch at bats and the heroic plays at shortstop. He was the player our entire generation has idolized. All of that has been well-documented. But, the more I come to grips with the reality that Derek Jeter will never play another baseball game, the more I realize how much I’ll miss having an athlete that was universally loved.