The laughable thing is that the light hitting Yankees are saying that Cap'n Jetes is out until after the All Star Break. Typical recovery time for a grade one sprain is 2-3 weeks. For a 39 year old man coming off two broken ankles, it's probably a month or more. Maybe iggy is writing their press releases. Tough break for a team with a brutal schedule in front of them.
Yanks have old Jeter, not Jeter of old
In summoning their captain too hastily, Bombers forgot Derek is 39 now -- not 29
By Ian O'Connor
ESPNNewYork.com
NEW YORK -- Derek Jeter as the DH in the Bronx rather than as the DH in Moosic, Pa., made all the sense in the world to Jeter, to Brian Cashman, to Joe Girardi. Why have the captain of the New York Yankees play one side of the ball for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders when he could do the same for the big boys?
Especially when the big boys are a half-dozen games behind the Red Sox.
They all got carried away, the captain, the manager and the executive. They forgot that Jeter is 39 years old, that 39-year-old ballplayers aren't supposed to play seven innings of a Triple-A game, field unexpected news at 11:30 p.m., travel 125 miles in the dead of night and rise at 6:30 a.m. after a couple of hours of fitful sleep to play a big league game for the first time in nine months.
They all wanted and needed Derek Jeter to be Derek Jeter again, the Yankee whose pain threshold and ability to answer the bell reminded Gene Monahan, a team trainer for nearly half a century, of Thurman Munson's.
So that's why Jeter was promoted a day and change ahead of schedule. That's why he never played a full nine innings with the RailRiders before showing up in the Bronx for the first time since he fractured his ankle last fall, this after the Yanks had planned for Jeter to go nine in back-to-back Triple-A games.
That's why Jeter's comeback was declared one-and-done Friday, suspended on account of a Grade 1 strain of the shortstop's quad. That's why Jeter is more likely than not to end up back on the disabled list before he ends up back on the field.
Cashman and Girardi summoned a 29-year-old Jeter from the minors and got the 39-year-old version instead.
They didn't want to admit that this was about age and that an athletic, middle-of-his-prime Jeter wouldn't have pulled up lame against Kansas City after gunning it down the line for a couple of slow infield rollers.
Cashman and Girardi know how sensitive Jeter is about everything, never mind his advanced ballplayer age.
So this is what Girardi said when asked whether he's concerned that a physically vulnerable Jeter is the one he'll have to manage for as long as the captain plays:
"I hadn't thought about that. I figured he'd come back and, yeah, I'd have to spell him here and there like I did last year, and have to be smart about it. But I didn't expect this to happen. ... I think this will heal fine and he will be fine, but I don't think it's a guy that you can run out there 40, 50 days in a row like you used to."
So this is what Cashman said when asked whether Jeter's latest injury was a simple case of an athlete losing the inevitable lost-cause battle to gravity and time:
"I don't want to say 39 [years old] as much as he's coming off a broken foot, a twice-broken foot, so stuff can happen. ... I don't want to say it's Father Time knocking on his door and reminding him as much as listen, he really is coming back from something pretty significant, and the kinetic chain can tell you if everything's not in line, it makes you more susceptible, especially when you ask for that extra from your tank. And when he asked for that extra there, if he's not 100 percent in line for a period of time, then something's going to give."
Cashman and Girardi want to blame the fractured ankle and want to embrace the notion that athletes of all ages could suffer a setback or two when returning from an injury so severe. Jeter wants to embrace the notion that his ankle snapped in the 12th inning of Game 1 of the Detroit sweep not because he was 38, but because he kept playing through a bone bruise.
