Ich Bin Ein Berliner

I, channeling the great Kennedy as he stood before the Berlin Wall, have allowed myself to be a Yankees fan for one night.  It felt pretty good.  I don't know if I could have done it while George Steinbrenner was still alive, but he's not.  He's dead and likely rotting in one of the danker cells they reserve in the lower rings of Hell for only the truest of assholes.  He probably doesn't even know what happened.  Think about that for a minute.

[Quick aside:  I'm told by people who should know that the cell next to him is being reserved for Dick Cheney.]

Derek Jeter's final line goes like this:  five at bats, two hits, one run, three runs batted in.  Pretty sweet.  Plus an error on a wild throw -- which makes it perfect.  I mean, you spend all that money to go to Yankee Stadium for his final game and you want to see the full measure of the man, warts and all.

And, because Derek Jeter truly is something else, his final hit, a single to right field (which is also perfect for reasons too lengthy to go into here), sends the winning run home in the bottom of the ninth.  A walk-off single!  This from a man who hit a home run as his 3,000th hit.

Perfect.

Of course it may not be his final line.  He still has to go to Boston for a few games.  Because he is who he is, I wouldn't expect anything other than that he plays.  Manager Joe Girardi has said he's putting him in the line up, but I'm sure the choice is Jeter's, one way or another.

Me?  The perfection of last night at The House that Derek Built makes me kind of wish he would choose to sit them out.  I doubt he will.

And one last thing:  The man played ball for the Yankees for 20 years.  And at no time up until last night did he play a home game -- not a single game -- in which the Yankees were not in the hunt for a playoff spot.  Not a single game.

I can't wait for them to send him to the Hall of Fame so I can drive up to Cooperstown, visit the Hall, then have a few drinks on the porch with Scully and Mary Jane.