Bronx Briefing: All Attention Still On 3,000

By Neil Keefe
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It's usually left-handed rookies that give the Yankees problems and not tall, right-handed divisional opponents they have seen before. But that was the case on Thursday night as Jeff Niemann (3-4, 5.05 entering the game) worked through the Yankees lineup the way a pitcher they have never seen before usually does.

While the Yankees' bats were somewhat helpless against the Rays' worst starter with Jeremy Hellickson, David Price and James Shields lined up for the weekend, the attention of Yankees fans was on Derek Jeter and whether or not he could get three hits, including his 3000th on Thursday night. And even though Bartolo Colon kept giving up hits and digging a deeper hole for the offense, everyone's focus was on when Jeter was coming to the plate next and how many people had to get on base to get him up the following inning. And yes, I was one of those people.

Every time Jeter came to the plate, Michael Kay talked about this "attention" and how the game had become more about Derek Jeter than it was about the New York Yankees trying to win. But Kay did little to make the game more about the team as he set the stage for every at-bat by reciting facts from Jeter's career as if reading from his Wikipedia or Baseball-Reference page. All five times Jeter came to the plate, Kay asked John Flaherty if the quest for 3000 hits was becoming a distraction and then went on his rant about how the crowd cared more about the hit than the score of the game.

Even though Kay wasn't helping the cause of making people care more about the game than the hit total, he has a point. The focus of Yankees games for the past few nights has become about the 3000th hit with the result of the game taking a backseat in some sense until the game is over.

I want Jeter to get his two hits on Friday night so that there isn't anymore talk of 3000, so the countdown stops and so the only focus for Yankees fans can go back to winning. That's not to say I don't care about the 3,000th hit because I think I care about it just as much as anyone since it's Derek Jeter doing it, but I just want the attention on the team to go back to wins and losses, and I'm sure Jeter does too. I know he does.

It's odd that my personal focus has been on the 3000th hit and when he will get it and less about the final score. But maybe that has to do with the team's recent surge, which has now become a recent slide (1-4) and maybe that's why I'm writing about this since things are always easier when the Yankees are winning.

So, here's to Derek Jeter getting his 3000th hit on Friday and ending the relentless countdowns and letting Yankees fans go back to worrying about more important things like taking back first place and trying to get Boone Logan designated for assignment.