Is it personal or is it business?

It’s pretty tough to bounce around the Internets without stumbling onto a picture of Derek Jeter, shirtless and hanging out with his fiance, Minka Kelly. That’s just the way it goes when the free-agent market is as tissue-thin as it is this winter, but moreover, that’s the way it is when it’s Derek Jeter.

Jeter, the captain, shortstop, glamour boy and link to the Yankees’ ghosts, has been the hot stove story thus far, mostly because the negotiations with the club haven’t gone all that well. At least that’s the portrait painted by the hyperbolic New York press, where the reports claim there is an $80 million and two-year gulf between the player and his team.

Actually, the consensus is the Yankees are daring to go to another team as if Jeter’s act only works in New York City. You know, because popular players who bat at least .291 in 15 straight seasons heading into 2010 with five World Series rings while just 74 hits shy of the magical 3,000 hit mark have difficulty adapting.

But this isn’t about history, loyalty or legacies. This is 2010 and even though Jeter might be the modern version of Joe DiMaggio, it’s the money that matters.

No, it’s not personal. It’s business.

It’s really a ridiculous phrase if you stop and think about it. Actually, it’s one of those idioms that is an established part of our lexicon that results in solemn nods or resigned shoulder shrugs whenever someone lays it out there.

Well, it’s just business.

What in the name of Gordon Gecko does that mean?

Apparently, it means Jeter and the Yankees are trying to save face. It means if the world is a rat race then it’s OK to be a rat. It means Tessio is going to have to go for a ride with Tom Hagen and he’s not going to be able to talk his way out of it. Not this time.

Tell Mikey it’s just business, it’s not personal.

That’s exactly what this standoff is all about. Jeter doesn’t want to take a cut in the 10-year, $189 million deal he just completed and the Yankees want to stop being the Yankees to guys like Derek Jeter. Instead, the Yankees want to be the Yankees to Cliff Lee and make a deal with the lefty that will make Jeter’s look like tip money. Certainly the three-year, $45 million the Yankees reportedly offered Jeter will look like loose change found in the cushions of the couch compared to what Lee is expected to command.

So what we have here is a situation where one side has to determine the worth of its counterpart. Certainly Jeter is one of the most popular players in the game, and even though he just wrapped up his worst season where he established career lows in batting (.270) and slugging (.370), those within the game rate him as one of the top handful of players. However, at 36, Jeter’s age and defense is an issue. Plus, the Yankees have already paid Jeter more than $205 million in salary where as the Yankees’ captain and shortstop, he is one of the few baseball players with an elite-level Q-rating.

Jeter wants four to five years. These days, the length of a contract is the deal-breaker for most ballplayers, simply because unlike in the NFL, MLB deals are guaranteed. Look at Jayson Werth and the Phillies—in that situation, a deal likely could be brokered for three years, but Werth wants more, and he’ll probably get it. No, Jeter probably doesn’t need the money a guaranteed deal ensures, but if he’s healthy he’s going to get a chance to play with a five-year deal.

Five more seasons could put Jeter on the cusp of 4,000 hits, a milestone reached by only two hitters in Major League Baseball history. In fact, Pete Rose, the all-time hit leader, was exactly 10 hits behind Jeter at similar points in their careers. Rose had just turned 37 when he collected his 3,000^th hit in his 16^th season. Jeter will likely get his 3,000^th career hit around his 37^th birthday in his 16^th season, too.

Interestingly, I met with Rose in Las Vegas a couple of years ago and asked him if he thought anyone could break his record of 4,256 hits. The answer, of course, was a blunt and resounding, “No.”

But I pressed on anyway, ticking off names as if we were a couple of baseball fans talking about the game in a bar or wherever. Only in this case it was Rose, me and the workers at a memorabilia shop in Caesar’s Palace where the all-time hit king was signing autographs and posing for pictures.

“Alex Rodriguez?”

“No.”

Even though A-Rod averages 190 hits per 162 games, his tendency to hit homers and standing in the middle of the Yankees’ offense might make it difficult for him to get beyond 3,800 hits.

“Ichiro?”

“If he would have started out playing in the U.S., maybe. But he lost all those years.”

Yes, that’s true. Ichiro would have the best chance if he hadn’t spent the first half of his career playing in Japan. He is 36 and has nearly 3,500 hits between both Japan and the U.S. and needs just 16 more hits this season to break Rose’s record of 10 seasons with at least 200 hits.

Regardless, Ichiro’s nine “lost” seasons in Japan cost him.

However, the way Rose so quickly dismissed the next name was kind of surprising.

“Derek Jeter,” I said.

“No,” said Pete.

“Really? Why not? He gets 200-hits a season and hits at the top of a lineup that needs his to get hits. Ten years worth of 200 hits or close to it is nearly 2,000 hits. That adds up.”

“Yeah, but he’s 35,” Pete said.

What Rose didn’t mention was that when he was 40, he led the National League in hits. He also played first base in his first four seasons with the Phillies, a far less demanding position than shortstop, and got 705 hits from ages 38 to 41. That comes to an average of 193 hits per 162 games.

Not bad for an old guy.

In another coincidence, Rose was just a year older than Jeter when he left Cincinnati for Philadelphia and the Phillies and WPHL (Channel 17), ponied up a record $3.225 million over four years (with an option for the fifth year) to give the old man. Times were different, of course. With Rose, the Phillies sold more tickets and Channel charged more for ads. Philadelphia also got to see Rose pass Stan Musial for the hit record in the National League. Better yet, the Phillies won the World Series in 1980 made it back there in ’83 and made the playoffs in 1981.

In other words, the Phillies needed Pete Rose.

Do the Yankees need Derek Jeter? Will Jeter help the Yankees sell more tickets or attract more advertisers to their TV network? Probably not. But will he pass some meaningful milestones at Yankee Stadium and help the team get to the playoffs where the cash really rolls in. Additionally, will signing Jeter prevent the Yankees from going after players like Cliff Lee?

Jeter’s value is found in the answer to those questions.

Pete Rose gets just one night

The anticipation had been building for weeks during the summer of 1985 and as the new school year started, 44-year-old player-manager Pete Rose had chipped away at Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record. Maybe Pete got there a little slower than our young minds thought, but with a pair of hits on a Sunday afternoon game at Wrigley Field, Rose and Cobb were tied with 4,191 hits.

Clearly at this point of his career Rose was just hanging on for the record. We saw it when he was winding his way through his last season with the Phillies in 1983. A staple at first base for a full 162 games in his first four seasons with the Phillies, Rose often split time with Tony Perez and an aging prospect named Len Matuszek, who hit 27 homers in Triple-A in ’83. As a result, Rose was the Phillies opening day right fielder that season and did not regularly play first base until the end of June.

When the World Series shifted to Philadelphia for Game 3, manager Paul Owens kept Rose on the bench a pinch-hitter. In Game 5, Rose went 2-for-4 as the right fielder. Three days later, the Phillies released him, just 10 hits short of 4,000.

There was nothing as odd as seeing Rose at age 43 with his hair graying, dressed in the gaudy Montreal Expos uniform. Fortunately for the fashion police, Rose was traded from the Expos to the Reds where the Cincinnati kid returned to be a first baseman and manager, all at once.

Rose will be in Cincinnati tonight for a ceremony to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of his 4,192^nd hit. After all, it was Sept. 11, 1985 at Riverfront Stadium, now leveled and turned into a parking lot, where Rose had his last moment in the sun. Despite all those hits, all those records and a burgeoning managerial career that resulted in a World Series title for the Reds 13 months after his suspension, Rose likely will never stand in front of the masses at Cooperstown and be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

His reward was a bad movie produced by ESPN where Tom Sizemore stumbled through his depiction of Rose. It might have been better to get Ted Sizemore.

Nevertheless, Rose broke Cobb’s record on a school night, but I can remember being out in front of the house when word filtered out that hit No. 4,192 had fallen. There were no cut-ins to the regularly-scheduled programming, no big national celebrations and no buzz outside of folks who followed baseball religiously. For Rose, though, it was the culmination of a life’s work and the definition of his legacy. In fact, he has trademarked the phrase, “Hit King,” which along with his career hit total (4,256), he writes onto every autograph he signs at the memorabilia shop in Las Vegas. Sorry, the “Charlie Hustle” inscription costs extra.

Coincidentally, Cobb played his final game on Sept. 11, 1928, though he was the Hit King since 1923 when he passed Cap Anson with his 3,436^th hit[1]. So Cobb held the record for 63 years—24 years after his death—before Rose grabbed a hold of it. And with his 70^th birthday coming up next April, Rose could hang onto the record for the rest of his life, and maybe even as long as Cobb.

Couldn’t he?

A couple of years ago I met with Rose in Las Vegas and I asked him if he thought anyone could break his record. The answer, of course, was a blunt and resounding, “No.”

But I pressed on anyway, ticking off names as if we were a couple of baseball fans talking about the game in a bar or wherever. Only in this case it was Rose, me and the workers at a memorabilia shop in Caesar’s Palace where the all-time hit king was signing autographs and posing for pictures.

“Alex Rodriguez?”

“No.”

Even though A-Rod averages 190 hits per 162 games, his tendency to hit homers and standing in the middle of the Yankees’ offense might make it difficult for him to get beyond 3,800 hits.

“Ichiro?”

“If he would have started out playing in the U.S., maybe. But he lost all those years.”

Yes, that’s true. Ichiro would have the best chance if he hadn’t spent the first half of his career playing in Japan. He is 36 and has nearly 3,500 hits between both Japan and the U.S. and needs just 16 more hits this season to break Rose’s record of 10 seasons with at least 200 hits.

Regardless, Ichiro’s nine “lost” seasons in Japan cost him.

However, the way Rose so quickly dismissed the next name was kind of surprising.

“Derek Jeter,” I said.

“No,” said Pete.

“Really? Why not? He gets 200-hits a season and hits at the top of a lineup that needs his to get hits. Ten years worth of 200 hits or close to it is nearly 2,000 hits. That adds up.”

“Yeah, but he’s 35,” Pete said.

Actually, Jeter is 36 now and in the throes of his worst season in the big leagues, batting just .260 with 152 hits in 138 games. Heading into this season, Jeter averaged 208 hits per 162 games. At that rate, he would need to play seven more seasons to end up with nearly 4,200 hits.

Sure, Jeter plays a demanding position, but he will be younger than Rose was when he gets his 3,000^th hit next year. This is all some rudimentary and basic math and it’s probably not likely that Jeter will be pounding out 200 hits when he is 40, especially considering his contract is up at the end of the season. However, maybe Jeter will move to first base or DH a few games a week instead of playing 150-plus at shortstop every year?

Besides, when Rose was 40 he led the National League in hits, and the first four seasons he played first base when he joined the Phillies, Rose got 705 hits. Make that 705 hits in 594 games from the ages 38 to 41. That comes to an average of 193 hits per 162 games.

Not bad for an old guy.

So could Jeter get close to Rose’s record? Perhaps we should save this for 2017 if Jeter is still around. That will give Rose 32 years with the record and 28 years into his banishment from the game. In the meantime, Rose gets a special dispensation on Sept. 11, 2010 to celebrate what he did 25 years before in an actual, major league ballpark. Yes, Major League Baseball will allow Rose into Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati tonight. Whether or not he’ll get another visit remains to be seen, but what is definite is that Rose should be able to last as long as humanly possible.

Rose’s career and his record took durability. So too does his banishment from baseball. He played for 24 years and he’s been banned for 21.

What’s going to give first, the record or the ban?

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[1] Cobb broke Anson’s record with a four-hit game on Sept. 22, 1923 at Fenway Park while playing for the Tigers. Interestingly, the Tigers were wrapping a stretch where they played 12 games in six days… yes, six straight doubleheaders against the Philadelphia A’s and Red Sox. He had a chance to set the record at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, but got just four hits in six games against the second-division A’s. He fared much better in Boston, going for 11 hits in the first five games and tied the record with a homer in the sixth inning.

The NLCS: Chase Utley no Mr. October

LOS ANGELES—There’s no logical way to explain why some players thrive in the postseason and others just have the worst time ever. Chalk it up to simply being one of those baseball things that are indefinable.

As Charlie says, “Funny game.”

But one thing that is never a mystery is that legacies of ballplayers are defined by how well they perform in October. Sure, there are some players like Ted Williams and Ernie Banks who are given a pass for a dearth of playoff exposure, but those guys are rare. After all, there’s a reason why Derek Jeter is viewed as an all-time great despite a shortcoming or two.

And of course no one ever talks about the fact that Reggie Jackson struck out more times than anyone in baseball history and batted .300 just one time in 21 seasons. Reggie Jackson was Mr. October because he hit 10 home runs and won the World Series five times.

When it comes down to it, the performance after the season ends is what matters most, yet there are some pretty great players who struggle beneath the bright lights and others that can’t help but perform well in when the games matter most.

“It’s one of those things, I guess,” said Phillies’ hitting coach Milt Thompson, who holds the club postseason record for most RBIs in a game with five in a game in which he needed a homer to complete the cycle. “Some guys like the lights.”

Others don’t do well with them at all. For this group of Phillies it seems as if Ryan Howard is becoming quite Jacksonian. In Friday’s Game 2 of the NLCS, Howard continued his October assault by reaching base for the 15th straight postseason game. More notable, the Phillies’ slugger has at least one RBI in every game of the 2009 playoffs thanks to a fourth-inning homer against former Phillie Vicente Padilla in the 2-1 defeat.

But don’t just pin Howard’s hot playoff hitting to this season. His streak of big hits goes back to last October, too. In fact, Howard is hitting .382 (21-for-55) with six doubles, four home runs and 17 RBIs in his last 14 playoff games and he has reached base safely in his last 15.

In 23 postseason games Howard has five homers and 19 RBIs. The RBIs are already a franchise record for the postseason.

October has not been too kind to Chase Utley, though. Sure, he hit a pair of homers in the World Series last year and batted .429 against the Rockies in the NLDS, but so far he’s 1-for-8 against the Dodgers in the NLCS and has a .241 lifetime average in 23 playoff games with 23 strikeouts. Take away the 2009 NLDS and Utley is hitting just .203 in the playoffs and fails to put the ball in play more than 40 percent of the time.

Then there is the fielding. In the two biggest games of the season (so far), Utley has committed costly errors. The one in Game 1 caused pitcher Cole Hamels to throw a bit of a fit, while the one in Game 2 proved to be one of the biggest reasons why the Phillies lost to the Dodgers. Actually, Utley has three errors in his playoff career, which is a rate twice as high as his regular-season total of errors.

The errors in the field are what everyone is talking about now, but there’s more to Utley’s playoff woes. There was also the debacle of Game 1 of the 2007 NLDS in which he struck out four times on 13 pitches.

Still, even when Utley is playing well he consistently works to improve his game. Chancs are he dials up the effort even highr when things go poorly.

“I’m never really satisfied on the way I play,” Utley said. “I always feel like I can play better, so this season is no different.”

Nope, not at all. It’s no different in that Utley is finding trouble in the playoffs…

Again.