Seattle Mariners Pay Tribute To Derek Jeter

Prior to Tuesday’s game between the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees at Safeco Field, the Mariners had a ceremony to celebrate the career of Derek Jeter, who is retiring at the end of this season.

As part of the ceremony, the Mariners presented Jeter with an actual seat from the Kingdome, as Jeter made his Major League debut there.

The M’s also have pledged to give him the second-base bag from this week’s three-game series, which runs through Thursday at Safeco Field. The idea, as Rick Rizzs said, was to bookend Jeter’s career in Seattle with mementos from both stadiums.

Second baseman Robinson Cano, a teammate of Jeter’s up until this season, presented Jeter with a watch with the engraving: “To Derek — Thank you for showing me how to be a leader. With love and respect — RC”

Finally, Cano, along with Felix Hernandez, Jay Buhner and Edgar Martinez presented Jeter with a check for $5,000 for his charity.

Now, we have been seeing these types of send-offs for hall of fame-caliber players more and more lately. Most recently, for Chipper Jones, Todd Helton and Mariano Rivera.

I have absolutely no problem with it. But many took to social media to voice their displeasure with the Mariners organization for celebrating the career of the Yankee Captain.

I was asked via the @SodoMojoFS account what I thought of the whole thing. My answer was quite simple.

Seeing as this has been happening for some time, I have no real problem with it. Jeter is a statesman of the game, a class-act on and off the field. People that are upset with these tributes hate the Yankees more than they love and respect the history of the game of baseball.

Let each team take a pregame ceremony to acknowledge the contributions of a dynamic ballplayer to the game as a whole. If you don’t agree, don’t watch – either on TV or in person.

I personally think that it is good for the future of the game to spend a few moments to celebrate today’s great players and thank them for their contributions not only to their team(s) but to the game as a whole.