For Derek Jeter, final Yankee Stadium opener is beginning of end

The manager is right. Jeter's 2014 season will be about his 2014 season, but it will also be about recognizing a shortstop who has 3,321 hits (and counting)

Kostya Kennedy | Apr 7, 2014

For Derek Jeter, final Yankee Stadium opener is beginning of end /

Derek Jeter got a win in his final home opener, as the Yankees downed the Orioles, 4-2, on Monday. — Derek Jeter got a win in his final home opener, as the Yankees downed the Orioles, 4-2, on Monday :: Kathy Willens/AP

The manager is right. Jeter's 2014 season will be about his 2014 season, but it will also be about recognizing a shortstop who has 3,321 hits (and counting) in a Yankees uniform and who has rings for each finger on his right hand. There are two ways to look at Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, and both ways are true. On the one hand, this was the beginning of the end for Derek Jeter -- only 80 regular season home games left. On the other hand, this was the start of something big.

Published Apr 7, 2014

KOSTYA KENNEDY

Kostya Kennedy, a senior editor for Sports Illustrated, joined the magazine in 1994 and writes on a range of topics for the magazine and SI.com. He covered hockey as a writer for many years and edited Sports Illustrated's The Hockey Book (2010). He has written often on baseball and he edited the magazine's Scorecard section. Kennedy's journalism experience includes time as a staff writer at Newsday. He was news editor at The Queens Tribune in New York City and he has written for The New York Times and The New Yorker among other publications. Kennedy received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and earned an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he was awarded a Pulitzer Fellowship. He has taught journalism at Columbia and at New York University.