MINNEAPOLIS — Adam Wainwright’s heart was in the right place. He wanted to make this an especially memorable night for Derek Jeter by grooving a fastball for him. He just shouldn’t have admitted it afterward.
By doing so he stole a bit of romance from Jeter’s grand night. After all, the Yankee Captain’s line double in his first at-bat in Tuesday night’s All-Star game, just seconds after a huge ovation, felt like one of those adding-to-his-legend moments.
And then Wainwright went and told the kids that Santa Claus isn’t real.
“I was going to give him a couple of pipe shots,” Wainwright said with a smile. “I didn’t know he was going to hit a double, though, or I might have changed my mind. I thought he’d line a single to right, or maybe a ground ball.”
Wainwright laughed a bit ruefully, an acknowledgment that Jeter’s double led to a three-run inning against the Cardinals’ righthander — and a 5-3 loss to the American League.
“I probably should have pitched him a little better than that,” he said.
This was in the hallway outside the clubhouse, and Wainwright repeated the details a couple of times. There was no indication he was joking, as he would claim a couple of hours later, when he realized what firestorm he’d created with his comments.
After the game he went so far as to call himself “an idiot” for mis-speaking. But that simply felt like damage control.
Wainwright, by all accounts, is one of the real good guys in baseball. He’d made it clear he had the highest respect for Jeter, and when the Yankee shortstop came to the plate for his first at-bat, Wainwright placed his glove on the mound and walked to the grass some 10 feet behind it, inviting the crowd at Target Field to give Jeter his due.
“I’d still be standing there if the crowd hadn’t finally stopped,” Wainwright said. “Derek was telling me to go but I said no. I wanted to give him that honor.”
He probably just got caught up trying to be that good guy by talking about the fat pitch he threw.
Jeter, of course, handled the situation with his usual class. First he thanked Wainwright for stepping off the mound as he did, saying, “That says a lot about him what a class act he is.”
Then when he was told Wainwright said he had laid one in for him, Jeter laughed it off.
“If he grooved it, thank you,” he said. “You’ve still gotta hit it. But if that’s what he did, I appreciate it.”
He’s right, of course. A grooved fastball or not, it’s no small feat for a 40-year-old shortstop who has lost his extra-base power to rifle a 90-mph fastball to the right-field corner.
And considering the pomp and circumstance surrounding Jeter’s final All-Star Game, and the fact that he knew everybody in baseball seemed to want to make the night about him, the double still qualified as quite a moment.
Before he’d even reached second base, in fact, you couldn’t help but think of Joe Girardi’s perfect description of Jeter last July.
“He’s a movie, is what he is,” Girardi said.
Jeter had returned from the disabled list that day in typically dramatic fashion, with a first-pitch home run during a season in which he ultimately proved his ankle wasn’t fit for baseball.
Somehow he has always saved his best for the biggest moments, whether it was the countless hits in October, the home run off David Price for hit No. 3,000, or now this, a leadoff double that instantly made this final All-Star Game one to remember.
It’s what everyone in baseball seemed to be hoping for, something that would help make this Jeter send-off feel like more than a Lifetime Achievement Award.
“He’ll do something to make you want to tip your cap,” Indians manager Terry Francona had said on Monday. “I’ve seen it too many times. The guy is unbelievable like that.”
When Jeter followed up his first at-bat by flaring a single to shallow right off Reds righthander Alfredo Simon, he was 2-for-2. And then, suddenly it was the top of the fourth inning, and Red Sox manager John Farrell sent Alexei Ramirez out to shortstop, setting up one final outpouring of admiration as Jeter jogged off the field.
Fans stood, players from both teams came out of the dugout to applaud, all to “New York, New York” being played over the ballpark’s sound system.
Afterward Jeter thanked Farrell and said, “I didn’t know it was going to happen. It’s a moment I’ll always remember.”
By night’s end, then, it did feel as if this was one of those nights when Jeter makes it all feel like a movie.
By the same token, it surely didn’t feel as if Wainwright’s admission was grounds for capital punishment. But he still should have known better.