Bracing For Opening Day

Let's use tomorrow's Opening Day as an excuse for a tribute to the Captain of the Yankees.  First, from coverage of the recent Yankee trip to Virginia Tech:

BLACKSBURG, Va. — The buses wound through the Blue Ridge Mountains, taking the Yankees from the airport in Roanoke to the heart of a campus changed forever last April. Fans cheered from the sidewalks at Virginia Tech, snapping pictures and waving. If the players looked out the windows, they could see decals of memorial ribbons on the backs of many cars.

The buses stopped at Drill Field, the memorial site for the 32 victims of a gunman’s rampage 11 months ago. The players and staff members, led by the Yankees’ general partner, Hal Steinbrenner, walked solemnly in a semicircle, past the stone markers for the dead.

Derek Jeter was the first player off his bus. Near the far edge of the memorial was the stone for Michael Pohle, a biochemistry major from Flemington, N.J. On the ground beside it was a T-shirt with Jeter’s name and number. A young woman named Marcy Crevonis stepped from the crowd.

“Derek, do you mind if I take a picture by my fiancé’s stone?” she said. “I won’t cry, I promise.”

Jeter said he has felt like this before, after Sept. 11, when he wondered how baseball players could possibly help people recover from devastation. He still does not know, he said. Maybe they could simply make them smile.

Jeter told Crevonis she could have the picture if she smiled. She did.

“That’s part of the reason that we’re here,” Jeter said.

Derek Jeter has had a consistent philosophy on this point; this is from Sept 27, 2001:

Yesterday, Jeter had two special guests watching batting practice: the sisters Brielle and Kirsten Saracini of Yardley, Pa. 

They are the daughters of Victor J. Saracini, the pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, which was hijacked and crashed into 2 World Trade Center.

Ten-year-old Brielle wrote to Jeter, who called the Saracinis' home on Tuesday, inviting the girls and their mother, Ellen, to last night's game. They watched the game from Jeter's seats behind home plate.

''She was asking me why I stand so straight up when I hit,'' Jeter said of Brielle. ''She told me how much it meant for her to come here. We made her smile, at least for today.''

The girls lined up for the high-fives after the Yankees' victory, and Torre presented them with the lineup card.

''They said it was a dream come true,'' he said.

Let's have some pictures to verify those smiles.

Well.  If the team with the best captain wins, it's over.  But that rule hasn't held for years.

Comments

[Jane]

Geez, don't make me start out this season praising the Yankees. That's dirty pool TM.

[Danube of Thought]

I didn't leave the Yankees. They left me--when Mantle left, and then when Steinbrenner arrived.

[kim]

Bill James on 60 Minutes tonight. The undercard is Al Gore calling we skeptics flat earthers and moon landing deniers.

Did you know Al Gore claims a 300 million dollar environmental awareness fund he's about to start spending? Did you know Richard Scaife is kissing up to Hillary? Basra makes better sense than this.
==================================

[Jane]

DOT,

We will always have the Pats. (Do you know no one has talked about that game since the day it was played? Not a word. To this day, there isn't a New Englander alive who can speak about it.)

[Danube of Thought]

I'm not surprised, Jane. I'm a nominal Chargers fan, but even I was badly jolted by that game. And given that the ones who did the Pats in were the Giants, of all teams, it's still harder to take. I think the Pats' mojo may be permanently broken. Like when SC lost to Vince Young.

[Jane]

I think the Pats' mojo may be permanently broken.

No, no, no, no, Nooooooooooooooo.

[dick]

The one good thing about this is that it once again shows that Jeter has class. I remember a parade a couple of years ago where he was the Grand Marshal and he picked his parents to ride with him because they were responsible for his success. A real class act.

[Veeshir]

Jeter makes it hard to hate the Yankees.
I manage it somehow, but I just can't hate Jeter.

[rhodeymark]

Now, about this Rod fellow...
Oh, and let Clemens be remembered as a Yankee. And, and, and - less Hal, more Hank!!
OK - now I can grudgingly admit that Jeter is a good guy (but he has gotten "extra" Gold Gloves for that as well).

[SaveFarris]

The one good thing about this is that it once again shows that Jeter has class.

Jeter has so much class that he graciously changed positions so that the best SS on the roster could play SS. ... wait ...

[GMax]

It not Mickey Mantle - its the pinstripes, they cant stop looking at the pinstripes.

[BC]

You go, Captain Intangibles. Now if only you weren't so bloody awful as a fielding shortstop.