Derek Jeter is going to be a Yankee.
That has been the default position from the moment his pending free agency became an issue last spring, which is to say the moment Jeter addressed it and left it behind as a discussable issue. That is the Jeter of legend, the team-above-self model who has inspired a million youth-league batting stances and millions of words of praise from reporters, reverends and rabbis.
It is not Jeter’s way to allow his personal stuff to interfere with his professional stuff. And as George Carlin might have put it, he has a big enough house for all his stuff.
What we are about to see, as man of intangibles enters the most tangible phase of all — baseball’s free market — is a Jeter we never have had to see before. He is 36 years old and he has had exactly one messy money battle with the Yankees: his first year of arbitration eligibility, when he took the Yankees to the cleaners.
He never has been a free agent before. The Yankees bought out his final year of arbitration with the first year of the 10-year, $189 million deal that ran out when the season did two weeks ago in Arlington, Texas. Forever, people who believe Jeter is as much myth as megastar have always believed — foolishly, and unfairly — that when the time comes, Jeter would do what exactly zero athletes before him have done:
Sign on for strictly the love of the game.
Hal Steinbrenner is smart enough to know that, which is why he spoke the way he spoke on the radio Tuesday afternoon. He’s boardroom smart. He said the coming negotiation could be a wee bit less than fraternal. And in case anyone missed the point, Jeter’s camp confirmed it yesterday.
“While it’s not our intent to negotiate the terms of Derek’s free-agent contract in a public forum, we do agree with Hal and Brian [Cashman’s] recent comments that this contract is about business and winning championships,” Jeter’s agent, Casey Close, told The Post’s George King yesterday. “Clearly, baseball is a business and Derek’s impact on the sports most valuable franchise can’t be overstated. Moreover, no athlete embodies the spirit of a champion more than Derek Jeter.”
So there it is, a perfect return of Hal’s serves of a day earlier, when the younger Steinbrenner brother said, among other things, “He’s one of the greatest Yankees in history no doubt about it, but at the same time I’m running a business. Hank and I have to be responsible to our partners so we have to remain somewhat objective.”
Now does this mean we’re heading to open warfare? It doesn’t mean that at all. It doesn’t guarantee any kind of acrimony at all. What it does tell us is this:
The Steinbrenners are certain that the last place Jeter wants to be in February is in Bradenton (home of the Pirates), Lakeland (home of the Pirates) or Surprise, Ariz., (home of the Royals).
Jeter is certain the last thing the Yankees want is to have Eduardo Nunez fielding dugout questions on the first day of spring training, about what it’ll be like to fill Jeter’s spikes.
And the rest of baseball is certain to stay out of the fray, knowing that any or all of the 29 other clubs will be mere patsies in a high-stakes game of follow-the-queen.
Jeter is a proud athlete, has spent his career watching with bemusement as most of the attention paid to Alex Rodriguez occurs on the first and 15th of every month. He never has wanted that. But never has exactly worked cheap, either.
And while the Yankees have reaped enormous benefits from having Jeter as the face of their franchise, there are still people working with the Yankees who remember how well they treated Jeter during the renewal phase of his career, were assured he would remember that when arbitration and free agency arrived, and still feel burned when that didn’t happen.
A business? You bet it is. If you are wagering on these things, the overwhelming smart money still insists Jeter will report to Tampa as a Yankee in February.
He just might arrive with a few scars on his face. And his fists.