CHAD MOTTOLA will be watching the last at-bat.

In the 1992 baseball draft, Mottola, a power-hitting outfielder from Fort Lauderdale, was picked fifth by Cincinnati, even though the Reds' Michigan scout begged the front office: Take Jeter. Mottola went on to have a dazzlingly short career, appearing in only 59 games, roughly 2,700 fewer than Jeter. Now the minor league hitting coordinator for Tampa Bay, Mottola says he's endured 20 years of ribbing, not always good-natured. But last year, when he was with Toronto, he and Jeter had a moment. They shook hands, shared a laugh about how their fates are entwined. Mottola then sent two baseballs into the Yankees' clubhouse, with a modest request. He wanted Jeter to sign them for his kids, 9 and 6. "I wanted him to write: Your dad was supposed to be better than me -- haha."

Somehow the baseballs got lost. Mottola never got them back. Oh well, he says. Another time.

"Being undefeated for 20 years? In New York City? That's remarkable." - Alex Rodriguez

The man who chose Mottola over Jeter will also be watching. "I probably will," says Julian Mock, former scouting director of the Reds.

Mock vividly recalls the scout telling him that Jeter was the real deal, and Mock had no reason to doubt the scout. "But we already had a Hall of Famer at short -- Barry Larkin!" So Mock chose Mottola and let Jeter slip to the shocked and jubilant Yankees. Now retired and living in Georgia, Mock doesn't go back, late at night, when he can't sleep, and replay his decision. Really. He doesn't. "I'm glad I didn't get him," he says. "The way our system was? When he made all those errors the first two years in the minor leagues -- he'd have been gone."

It's true. When Jeter first joined the Rookie League Gulf Coast Yankees, he was so error-prone that some within the organization started to have buyer's remorse. Some talked about moving him to center field, and Jeter heard them talking. He panicked. He sank into a depression.

It was the darkest time of his life. Eighteen, homesick, having his first real taste of failure, he wept every night for months. Then things got worse. The following year, though his hitting improved, he committed 56 errors, a league record. There was growing concern within the Yankees, and some said openly that Jeter might be a bust, and so the team sent out an urgent distress call to Brian Butterfield, a well-respected fielding guru. Come fix this kid.

Butterfield hustled to Tampa and put Jeter through an intensive boot camp, 35 straight days of breaking him down, teaching him how to field a grounder.

What was Jeter doing wrong?

"You name it," Butterfield says, laughing. "His feet didn't have a purpose. His glove didn't have a purpose." While Butterfield was installing purpose in Jeter's extremities, he noticed that the rest of Jeter was wholly purpose-driven. No matter how many grounders Jeter muffed, he went after the next one with confidence and determination. "He didn't get down on himself," Butterfield says. "He was the antithesis of me."

Now a coach for Boston, Butterfield will have no choice but to watch Jeter's last at-bat. He'll be a ground ball away. And he expects the moment to be unbearably poignant. He predicts tears. "He has impacted my life far more than I ever could've done for him," Butterfield says.

ONE JETER FAN who won't be watching is R.D. Long, who played with Jeter in Tampa and Greensboro. Unlike Jeter, Long was no bonus baby. Drafted in the 38th round, he managed to eke out a few years in pro ball before giving up, right around the time Jeter was achieving superstardom.

Long recalls the exact moment he realized that his friend, with whom he'd shared bad motel rooms and greasy road food, had become a god. The Yankees were in Toronto, and Long was in nearby Rochester, and he swung by the ballpark to say hello. Standing shyly near the players' exit, near the buses, Long suddenly saw them all come out. Pettitte, Clemens, Rivera, Posada, a row of giants, and then Jeter, who seemed to be leading them from behind, "with this jacket-coat that looked like the wind; a fan was blowing, his coat is flying behind him, like he's some kind of superhero. It seemed so surreal that it was like -- it looked slow motion, like the smoke with the wind blowing Michael Jackson's shirt in that video? Like that.

"This was the boy king in the making, right in front of me. It happened that quickly."

So why won't Long be watching? "Certain things happened," he says. "The A-Rod scenario ... "

Long soured on the Yankees, he says, when the team acquired Rodriguez in a 2004 trade. Rodriguez was "all the talk -- while idly by you're ignoring one of the greatest ever -- Jete."

And yet ... Alex Rodriguez will be watching.

From his office in Miami, where he's serving a one-year banishment from baseball, Rodriguez says he's watched nearly every game of Jeter's Long Goodbye, and he'll surely be watching the last at-bat, and probably feeling nostalgic about the early days of their friendship. He often finds himself thinking of those halcyon days when he and Jeter were two teenagers loaded with talent, the world at their cleats. In particular he thinks of the night they first met. Rodriguez was a high school senior, trying to decide between attending the University of Miami and going pro, and he sought advice from Jeter, who'd just chosen the Yankees over the University of Michigan. Through Jeter's agent, they arranged to meet at a Miami-Michigan baseball game, and Jeter spent the entire game counseling Rodriguez. "We sat there for nine innings, talking shop," Rodriguez says. "I'm very inquisitive, I asked everything under the moon -- and what he told me that day, that night, had a huge influence."

Another glowing memory comes right behind that one, a heady night not long after Rodriguez and Jeter had both broken into the majors. MTV flew them both, first-class, to Los Angeles, to film a TV show called Rock N' Jock.

Rodriguez says they were beyond thrilled about flying first-class, and about the chance to see Hollywood. After filming ended, they went out on the town, and in the early-morning hours, in a cab back to their hotel, they talked unguardedly about the future. Both agreed that if they could just manage to stay in the game for a few years, long enough to earn "one million dollars," that would be unthinkable. More than anyone could dare hope for.

When the cab pulled up to the hotel they discovered that they didn't have enough to pay the fare. They pooled their crumpled bills and coins and came up with $17, Rodriguez recalls, which they handed, with profuse apologies, to the driver. Rodriguez laughs at the memory: their big dreams, their innocence.

Rodriguez and Jeter have had an up-and-down relationship through the years, he concedes. Friends, enemies, frenemies -- but right now he says they're in a good place. He's beyond proud of his friend, he says, filled with unrestrained admiration. "Derek's been a leader from day one. He's been the head of his class in every way, both on the field and in terms of character. ... That's hard to do. Being undefeated for 20 years? In New York City? That's remarkable."

Via satellite, Rodriguez soaked up every bit of Derek Jeter Day, including Jeter's moving, funny, "presidential" news conference afterward. "When you realize, an hour before the game, 50,000 people are in their seats, ready to go, excited, energetic. When you see Michael Jordan and Cal Ripken, two of the biggest icons of my lifetime -- I thought it was a great day. I'm sorry I wasn't there."

Rodriguez thought about texting Jeter that day. But he held off, he says, because he didn't want to be a distraction. "I've made it a point to stay in the penalty box."

Some days later, he says: "I opted to reach out to Derek in a private moment."

ABOVE ALL, Derek Jeter will not be watching the last at-bat of Derek Jeter. He won't step outside himself, he won't be thinking about any of this -- the cosmic importance, the social relevance, the emotions, the history. Nothing.

Sitting in a bare office in the bowels of Tropicana Field, wearing jeans, a gray T-shirt and a red beaded necklace, Jeter says softly that he'll reflect on the moment, briefly, before it comes, maybe, maybe. But in the moment, while it's actually happening? No. "Probably be thinking, 'Man, I need to get a hit right here.' But I think that every time."

Every game, before, during, after, he thinks the same things, does the same things, so he's not about to change now, he says, just because it's the end. He'll approach the 11,000-somethingth at-bat just like the first. "I'm a creature of habit," he says. "My biggest fear in life, in anything, is being unprepared. It throws me off. So I feel as though, when I do my routine, I'm prepared to play. When I don't, it throws me off."

That's why, for instance, he's used the same model of bat since he was 18. It's the bat that comes closest in shape to the aluminum bat he used in high school. "I've never changed," he says, beaming with pride. "I've used one bat my entire career -- P72. I'm the only person I know that's never changed. I've never had another at-bat with another one."

Not even in batting practice? Not even when he's slumping? "Its not the bat," he says, laughing. "Some people blame the bat ... ?"

He leaves open the possibility that he'll be nervous for the last at-bat. "Everybody gets nervous," he says. "It's just how you hide it. How you deal with it." But most likely he'll sleep like a baby. He only has trouble sleeping "when we have a day game after a night game."

If others are sad about the last at-bat, or about what comes after, he shows no signs of sharing their sadness. He sounds like someone looking forward to the next chapter, someone at peace with the timing of his decision. "I think you can play as long as you want, as long as you can work hard at it. I got to the point where this was my last year. I felt as though it was my last year. Not saying I don't think I could play longer."

Really?

"I mean -- who knows if they'd want me to come back."

He says he never consulted anyone about when to start the Long Goodbye -- not his parents, not his closest friends, not fellow players he respects. He searched his own heart. "I listened to people speak about retirement, but I've never sought someone out and asked them why they did it, what made them do it, when they knew it was the right time." And whenever he overheard someone saying, "Oh, you just know," he'd think, "How do you know?"

Then one day he found out. You just know.

So ... it's like falling in love?

"Yeah," he says.

Pause.

He looks off, thinking, smiling, then bursts into a laugh. "Something like that."

He allows that he's not the only one retiring from baseball. His parents are too, and they're as downhearted as anyone. "Both my parents are probably a little sad to see me go." Baseball, he says, "gives them something to do, something to watch, something to cheer for."

On the other hand, he believes they're also feeling some relief. "Dad was the first one to tell me, 'All along I've played every game with you.' He's a little tired too. On top of him playing, he reads all the papers and stuff I try to stay away from."

As for his mother, she's looking forward to his tackling another sport, a contact sport from which there is no retirement. Fatherhood. "My mom's more ready for me to have a family. She doesn't bring it up to me, very rarely, but I can follow the signs."

He seems to find the idea appealing. Twice he references becoming a father, the second time when talking about the family history that Gates and his researchers uncovered. He looks forward to "sharing" his personal history "with my kids hopefully one day."

Boston, he concedes, the site of some of his wildest triumphs and most painful defeats, is a strange place for his baseball life to end. A Boston reporter recently told him of Ted Williams' historic final at-bat at Fenway -- a home run. But that's all the time he's given over to thinking about baseball history or his place in it. Reflections on his career, comparisons between him and Williams or DiMaggio or Gehrig -- he brushes it all aside, as always. "Ask me again in three weeks," he says.

What's been the biggest surprise of his career, the thing he wasn't prepared for, the thing he'd tell a rookie coming up today? He thinks for several long moments. "How quickly it goes," he says. "I've never taken it for granted, but it goes a lot quicker than you could imagine."

Regrets? He's had a few. He wishes he'd written things down. "Especially now, in this day and age, everyone captures everything on their phones, a picture, but you don't really experience, because you're so caught up in capturing. I experienced a lot of things, I don't ever wish I could go back and capture them on film, but I wish I'd written them down. There's minor details you forget."

Thus, over the last few months, he's formed a new habit. He keeps a journal. Which he's never going to show to anyone.

Possibly he'll use it one day to write a book, a memoir? "No no no no," he says, "I would never. No no no -- I can't, no no no no."

The notes, he says, "are just for me. So when I'm old and gray I can look back."

Again and again people ask him what he'll miss the most, and his answer never changes. The winning. There's nothing like winning in New York. "I would go back and relive all the times we won, you know, because how my mind has always worked, after we won, right away, I'd say: 'Let's get ready, we have to do it again!' I think I'd go back and enjoy it a little more."

What will he miss least? "Every time I've struggled."

Also, this. The talking, the questions. Writers probing his mind. "I'm not controversial," he says. "Especially here in New York, they want you to say something controversial, and my job has been to limit distractions for my team -- that's my job, not to cause them."

He hears the writers complain that he doesn't give them anything. "Well, one, they ask me the same questions over and over, so I'm going to give you the same answers. But, two, I don't like to talk about negative things. Because in my mind I have to get rid of it, and I don't want to sit and dwell on it, and talk about it. Because then you start thinking about it, and then it poisons your mind. That's how I deal with it.

"If there's another way to deal with it -- in New York -- someone needs to tell me."

A few more questions, a few more answers, and then he has to go. He stands. His whole manner changes. Not that he hasn't been completely, charmingly, winningly friendly to this point, but suddenly his smile is different -- wider, easier. Freer. And there's a gleam in his eyes, because he gets to get on with his day, his life, the part he likes, being among his boys, being a ballplayer. He reaches out to shake, and it's that hand, the one that for two decades has asked, Wait, please, wait, just a little more time. And then, in less time than it takes to turn two, he's gone, and the little room under the Trop, which just seconds ago felt charged, electric, larger than life, feels inexplicably empty, and bitterly, bitterly cold.



IT COULD END ANYWHERE. But since every at-bat stands for the whole, why not end at the stadium, the final home game? Everyone saw what happened, but some probably think they were dreaming, and some were undoubtedly drunk, and the next generation won't know, and the one after that simply won't believe.

So. Always remember. The Yankees are leading 5-2 in the ninth, and in walks the closer, David Robertson, who has one job, to wrap it all up and get the party started. Instead Robertson secretly works for Hollywood, or Hallmark, or God, and he grooves a series of meatballs, and Baltimore's Adam Jones and Steve Pearce, who also apparently moonlight for Spielberg, swat no-doubters over the left-field wall and tie the game and tee it up for you-know-who. Smash cut, bottom ninth. The Yankees put a man on, of course, and bunt him over, of course, and the crowd rises, of course, and for a moment the place feels like 1996, and 1951, and 1927. He strides to the plate and swings at the first pitch, naturally, and laces it the other way, no he didn't, and the right fielder charges, are you watching this, and comes up throwing, is this really happening, and the runner slides, oh sweet lord, and if that umpire dares to say out he'll never make it to his car ...

Safe!

He leaps for joy, and hugs his teammates, one by one, and then to a thunderous roar he walks slowly, alone, to the middle of the field and drops to a crouch and says a prayer and then turns and tips his cap and walks off. There's joy on his face, and on the faces of the tens of thousands in the stands, but there's a striking, haunting sadness in those limeade green eyes, because tomorrow, and tomorrow, you know? The petty pace, it's already returning, and no amount of heroics, or winning, or love, since that's what we're really talking about here, love, can ever slow the coming of winter, or change the saddest, plainest fact of all: Youth doesn't bother to say goodbye.

Additional reporting by Anna Katherine Clemmons and Martenzie Johnson.

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