By Bob Gaydos

Derek Jeter

Confession: As coach of my son’s Little League team, I used my responsibility as uniform distributor to make sure that Zack got the number he wanted. Number 2.

Yeah, it’s the number probably 90 percent of the kids wanted, but I never felt guilty about it because: (a) the smaller kids got the lower numbers and Zack had a delayed growth spurt and (b) c’mon, what dad wouldn’t do what he could to help his son got Derek Jeter’s uniform number?

For those who may have been on another planet, Jeter is retiring after 20 years as a New York Yankee. This is his last week as a major league baseball player. The season has been a continuous homage to his career and, more significantly, to the professional, dignified manner in which he has lived it. Number 2 has been Number 1 when it comes to athletes as role models.

Some people (not Yankee fans) have complained that the Jeter Love Train has been a bit much this year, with tributes paid to him in every ballpark the Yankees visited. I can understand that, but when the commissioner of the league says he’s proud that Jeter has been the face of baseball for a decade or more, I think it’s important. There has been no hint of scandal attached to Jeter for his 20 years with the Yankees. No steroids. No arrests. No trash-talking or posturing.

And, by the way, only five players (Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Tris Speaker) have compiled more hits (3,460 and counting) than Jeter. He happens to have been a hell of a ballplayer. Clutch hits. Clutch plays in the field. Mr. November. The Captain. Five World Series rings. Mr. Consistency. More games at shortstop than anyone else. Never played another position. He is a guaranteed first-ballot Hall of Famer and any baseball writer who doesn’t vote for him should have his voting privileges rescinded.

Jeter managed all this in the toughest market and media center in baseball — New York City. Funny thing though, while he qualifies as an all-time great and conceding that playing with the Yankees has helped burnish his image, Jeter doesn’t even make the list of top five Yankees of all time in my opinion. That would be Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Still, being number six to that group is no small thing and it’s hard to imagine anyone breaking in to that Top Six club.

Mostly, when I look at Jeter’s career, I’m impressed with how quietly he went about his job, how almost routine he made the anything-but-routine appear. I don’t know how humble one can be when millions of fans shower you with praise every day for a year, when TV commercials extol your nice-guyness. Of course, Jeter has made hundreds of millions of dollars from baseball and those product endorsements. But that’s the world we live in and he has managed to carry it off with a sense of grace and dignity. You don’t hear those words used much around athletes these days.

Not to belabor what is really only repetitive, I felt an obligation to publicly thank Derek Jeter for showing youngsters how to go about whatever they do in life with a sense of purpose, responsibility, dedication, modesty, focus and respect for others. For showing them how to be grateful for the gifts they may have. That he also played baseball much better than most others was icing on the cake.

So here’s to Number 2. That number will be retired by the Yankees this year, which means a new generation of young ballplayers will have to find another number to demand. And a new group of dads will try to make it happen.

By Michael Kaufman

Would video replay show that Yogi was right, that Jackie Robinson was out?

Poor Howie Rose and Josh Lewin. The two radio announcers for the New York Mets have had their hands full, not to mention their mouths full of marbles, struggling their way through the copy for the new Wendy’s ad touting the fast-food chain’s new Tuscan chicken on ciabatta sandwich: “Go for the gusto with our lightly breaded chicken, rich garlic with roasted tomato aioli and sliced asiago cheese, on a toasted ciabatta bun. Available for a limited time only.” After stumbling on “aioli” and “asiago” the other night Lewin closed with, “Available for a limited time only at Wendy’s, home of hard-to-pronounce foods.” A couple of night later Rose, perhaps too focused on avoiding mispronouncing aioli and/or asiago, stumbled on “tomato.”

But I feel even sorrier for them—and for other baseball announcers who are in the same boat—each time they are forced to read endless inane copy that turns every available moment into advertising revenue.  A few days ago I heard an “injury report” informing listeners that no one on the team was injured at the time. That bit of silliness was sponsored by a law firm that specializes in injury suits.  How long will it be before they sell the advertising rights to the sunshine or the air we breathe?

And why, oh why, did the Mets agree to link the name of the ballclub to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity? How many times must we be reminded that WOR is the “new home” of those two bags of poison gas “and the New York Mets.” Eventually it occurred to me that there must now be others taking their place on WABC so I tuned in for a moment, only to hear the toxic intonations of Michael Savage, who used to be on WOR. A moment was more than enough: “Dr. Savage” (as he enjoys being addressed by callers) sounded like he was foaming at the mouth.

But the worst thing about the Mets switching radio stations is that the WOR signal is much weaker than that of WFAN, their former longtime home. WOR doesn’t carry as well to Orange County. I tune in a game when I’m driving and I often have to listen through static and high-pitched whistling noises that other family members find unbearable. This usually ends with my grumpily acceding to a passionate request to turn off the radio. It also reminds me of what it was like when I was 10 years old and begged in vain to be allowed to stay up later to hear the end of a game.  How did I end up with a wife as merciless as my parents? How can they not care that it’s the top of the ninth or extra innings? I used to be able to pick up WFAN and listen to Mets games when we went to New Hampshire during the summer. Good luck with that now that they are ensconced in their new home alongside Hannity and Limbaugh.

The thing that annoys me most, however, about baseball this season is not the overbearing advertising or the Mets changing radio stations. Rather, it is the increasing use of video replays to determine if an umpire has made the correct call.  Now, for example, if a manager believes the umpire made the wrong call of safe or out on a close play at home plate, he can calmly signal to the umpires that he’d like to challenge said call. The umpires will then trudge from the field via one of the dugouts to watch the replay. This may take a minute or two (affording previously untapped advertising opportunities). Upon their return to the field the umpires will either uphold the original decision or reverse it.

This is supposed to be wonderful for the game.  I find it more likely to induce sleep or a change in channels.  I prefer the occasional bad call (umpires are human after all) and the ensuing rhubarbs involving managers such as Earl Weaver, Leo Durocher, and Billy Martin.  Imagine if this rule had been in effect, say, during the first game of the 1955 World Series when Jackie Robinson stole home. Maybe Yogi was right. Maybe it was the wrong call. But so what? It’s so much better this way.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.