If you were paying attention, what you saw a fraction of inch before was a whole lot of space on the right side of the infield. Man on second, with speed, that's no such an unusual strategy. Unless you factor in the man standing at home plate.
And unless you remembered just how many of the first 3,462 base hits of Derek Jeter's career had gone in almost precisely that direction.
It had been seven years since Jeter had delivered a walk-off hit. And there seemed no way that he would end that streak. A few minutes earlier the Yankees held a 5-2 lead and the only question was this: would manager Joe Girardi take him out with one out or two outs, to the longest ovation in the short history of the new Yankee Stadium.
Before the game, Girardi has said: "Let it go through. Let the game take it's course. And we'll see what happens."
And he took that literally. Girardi never lifted him. And then the Orioles hit a pair of home runs, and suddenly it was 5-5, and the strangest thing happened then: out of muscle memory, the 48,613 people in stands started to boo. Until they realized something:
Until they realized Jeter was due up third in the bottom half.
The booing stopped then.
Now, one out, man on second, Jeter up, that big inviting hole on the right side of the infield … even before it happened, you knew it would happen. Even before the ball shot through to right field, you could see it shoot there, because you've seen it so many times. And so it was.
And so it happened.
And so his last act in The Bronx would be a winning one, almost a defiant one, the game-winning hit in the 81st home game of the year, a valedictory to end all valedictories. The run scored, the dog pile between first and second was on.
"All I ever wanted," he would say, "was to do my job."
And from the moment Antoan Richardson slid across home plate, then the joint began to jump, and rock, and shudder and shake. Louder and then louder still, crazy and then crazier still, 5 minutes and 16 seconds of sheer pandemonium that you still will feel in your bones in January.
Of course it had to end this way: no scripted ceremony, no fake plot. This is exactly how Jeter would have asked for it to end, even at the beginning, when he was still figuring out about himself, and about what mattered to him. Winning he said, at age 21: winning was what mattered most.
He walked in a winner, a World Series champion as a rookie.
And he would walk out that way, too. He graciously would congratulate the Orioles on winning the race that mattered most to him, but this would be just fine, too. The Orioles, just as graciously, stood on the top step, because when you're a part of a moment like this — even the foil — you want to enjoy it just as much.
The people weren't about to leave, of course. They stayed and they stood and they roared when Jeter went back out to shortstop and bent over to salute the sacred slice of dirt that had been his home, here and across the street, for 19 seasons. They stayed and they stood and they roared as he sought out his parents and his sister.
The stayed. They stood. They roared. It had been like this back in the first inning, when Jeter had hit a rocket that traveled 398 feet to Death Valley, colliding with the top of the fence, and if that had been it, if that had been all, that would've been enough. But of course there was more.
Of course three would be a ninth inning.
"It's the memories more than the mementos that I want to hold on to," Girardi had said before the game, in as prescient a statement as he possibly could have drafted. Seven hours later, there was a hole in the infield and a ball shooting through, and a career that Hollywood would adore was given its fitting conclusion … well, of course it ended that way.
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