God Love Jeter & Santa Claus
When I was six years old, I prayed for the first time. It was January 27, 1991, a Sunday, nine-thirty at night on the east coast, Super Bowl XXV, Giants and Bills. Scott Norwood was about to line up from the right hash, 47 yards out. Before the kick, I ran under my parentsâ dining room table and prayed he would miss. It must have been quick, because there was no timeout before the kick, only the play clock. I was a Giants fan the way that six-year-olds are fans, in that blissful way that little kids are fans of anything.
I used to tell my friends that I prayed Norwood would miss wide right; that I only believed in God because my very first prayer was answered; and that I was only a patriot because Whitney crushed the Anthem that night. God and Country, I thought, courtesy of the NFL.
When I was nine years old, Santa Claus brought me a puffy green winter jacket. It was December 25, 1993, Christmas morning, and my parents made me try it on next to the tree. When I went to hang it in the closet, I found a receipt in the pocket. It bore my motherâs signature, her beautiful name written in that beautiful cursive, that nunâs script that only mothers raised in parochial schools in the fifties can pull off. I asked her about it and she told me that when Santa Claus canât find certain things, he asks parents to find them for him. I remember pretending to accept the answer so that my mother didnât feel bad, some strange, heartfelt empathy from a little kid.
When I was twelve years old, the Yankees won the World Series. It was October 26, 1996, a Saturday night, and I was in the upper deck behind home plate for Game 6, the clincher, with one of my best friends, just the two of us. Our fathers had gotten two tickets to the game and gave them to their sons so we could watch Jeter and OâNeill, Tino and Bernie win it all the way they watched Maris and Ford, Yogi and the Mick. So we could feel that magic.
When I was seventeen, I was out with friends on Halloween night. It was October 31, 2001, a Wednesday, and I had spent a couple of hours with my buddies drinking Natty Lights in the woods, old enough to get our hands on some beers but young enough to have to be home early on a school night. Besides, I wanted to get back in time to catch Game 4 of the World Series, Yankees and Diamondbacks. So there I was on the floor of the living room, my parents on the couch behind me, in the same spot I watched Norwood miss wide right a decade before, a few feet from where I found out Santa Claus wasnât real, a little buzzed up from my time in the woods, when with a full count and two out in the bottom of the tenth, Derek Jeter hit the Series-tying homerun over the Old Stadiumâs right-field wall.
I used to tell my friends that our childhood would officially end when Jeter hung âem up; that I would try to have a son in time to bring him to see The Captain; and that we would always be young because we were younger than the Yankee shortstop. Eternal youth, I thought, courtesy of Derek Jeter.
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When I was eighteen years old, I went away to college. My university library had John 8:32 written in Latin in giant letters above its entrance. âYou will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.â When I graduated four years later, I remember thinking it ironic that a Jesuit university aiming to teach us the truth would, in so doing, more or less educate the God out of us. Or maybe I was just getting older.
When I was twenty-two, I fell in love. When I was twenty-three, we broke up.
When I was twenty-four and slugging it out in a Midtown Manhattan office building eighty hours a week, I started to believe that men needed to kill their idols. The Old Stadium was gone and we didnât need Jeter anymore. We used to joke about the guys at work who showed up fresh out of college and still believed. It might sound a little grim, but it was never any kind of melancholy shit. It was actually quite the opposite, a hopeful mantra among friends to remind us that we control our futures, that we can and should propel this life as hard and as far as we possibly can.
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I am thirty years old, and tomorrow morning when we wake up, Derek Jeter will be a former player, the retired shortstop and captain of the New York Yankees. According to the bullshit I used to tell my friends in high school, when this day was some distant, unimaginable point in the future, any remnants of our childhood that still remain will be put to bed tonight. If that is indeed the case, then what a fucking ride it was.
In the beginning, you believe because you are told to believe. You really think that if you pray for a missed field goal, youâre gonna get it, as if youâre the only person in the world who is praying in that moment or whose God exists. You really believe that a chubby old man with a white beard and a red suit comes through your chimney on Christmas Eve, guided by a fleet of flying reindeer.
Eventually, you believe because you want to believe. You might really think that that first love will last forever, as if youâre the only person in the world whoâs ever been in love. You might really believe that the man in the pinstripes with the number two on his back will always come through, and that he will somehow stay forever young.
Maybe somewhere along the way I tried not to believe, or maybe I thought I wasnât supposed to. Either way, in the end, I donât give a fuck if Whitney lip-synched the Anthem, Jeterâs defense sucked, or God and Love really exist, because all those moments they gave us along the way, however fleeting, were real. They were real because we felt them. And thatâs what makes this life so fucking magical.
This life we love so much.
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