Jeter's farewell tour

As I type this in our hotel room in Newport News, a Red Sox-Orioles game is on. The background noise of baseball is welcome to me, for sure. Baseball has begun, which certainly makes this old guy happy. I just love the rhythm of the season, where I can find a game on TV virtually every night for the next six months -- like I did tonight, with very little searching.

This year’s New York Yankees’ season is tinged with melancholy, as it will be the final go-around for Derek Jeter. It is highly unlikely that his farewell tour will have the ballyhoo and grandeur of the great Mariano Rivera’s last season in 2013. But we would do well to pause at his every at-bat, because it is likely there will not be another player like him.

Jeter has played 20 seasons with the Yankees. That is likely to never happen again. He has done it with quiet class and with an almost obsessive abhorrence to self-promotion; I'm a big fan of humility, and Jeter has cornered the market on that. Some may not agree with that assessment. But as an avid Jeter watcher for the past two decades, I can tell you this: It’s always about the team with him. And, despite dating high-profile women throughout his career, he has never once mis-stepped and caused himself or others embarrassment. It is unfathomable how he has done it, in the minefield of the Social Media Generation.

Obviously, I’m a big Jeter guy, but even ardent Yankee-haters and Jeter-haters at the very least have to respect him for what he has done over these past 20 seasons in pinstripes. Let's do our best to enjoy these final few months.