BOSTON -- As the second hitter in the New York Yankees order stepped into the batter's box Saturday afternoon, with a Fenway Park crowd rising in appreciation and filling the air with the familiar sing-song chant of his name, Derek Jeter turned to the Boston Red Sox rookie behind the plate, catcher Christian Vazquez.
"Good luck," Jeter said to Vazquez. "And take care of me. Don't throw it too hard."
Red Sox pitcher Joe Kelly lingered at the back of the mound and gave the announced crowd of 37,147 its chance to salute the Yankee shortstop and bane of Boston's existence for much of his 20 years in pinstripes.
"I let him have his time," Kelly said. "It was awesome to see him get that standing ovation and them cheering for him."
But then Kelly stepped on the rubber, and three pitches later, Jeter was walking back to the dugout, having swung and missed at a Kelly fastball that registered 99 mph on the radar gun.
"I wouldn't say I fed off it," Kelly said of the energy flowing through the ballpark. "[It was] my last start of the year -- no reason to hold back on the velocity. Last time on the hill, I decided to let it loose."
On a New England fall afternoon so splendid, it deserved its own curtain call, the past demanded more than its usual due. Not only with the expected fanfare for an uncommon man, Jeter, but also with a salute to retiring commissioner Bud Selig, who is winding up his own farewell tour with a stop in a ballpark he recalled first visiting 65 years ago as a teenager with his mother.
"It was 1949, [and] we came up to Boston," said Selig, who at the time was Yankees fan. "My mother, being a schoolteacher, loved baseball but wanted to go to art museums and had a lot of plans for me. [Joe] DiMaggio came back for that series. We got near the ticket window, and bang, it went down, and the guy said, 'Sorry, lady.' My mother said, 'I have my son here, and I'm from Milwaukee.'
"We walked around the ballpark [but] didn't get in. Thirty years later, the Brewers were playing a big series here in '79. I brought my mother, and I'll never forget, as we walked in, she said, "It's a little different from 30 years ago.'"
Selig has been back many times since then, first as owner of the Brewers, then for the past 22 years as commissioner, a position Ted Williams, with whom Selig said he had frequent phone conversations near the end of the Hall of Famer's life, described as "the worst f---ing job in America."
"There were days when I wholeheartedly agreed with him," Selig said.
But for all the fond reminiscences of a captain and a commissioner, the future elbowed its way in, as it inevitably does, and splashed gaudy colors on a scene that was supposed to be dipped in sepia tones.
On the Yankee side, it was general manager Brian Cashman telling reporters he has been in contact with fallen star Alex Rodriguez and exchanged text messages with him as recently as Friday night. They were plotting the best way A-Rod could return next season after two years away, the first because he was betrayed by his body, the second because he betrayed the commissioner's trust and was suspended for performance-enhancing drugs.
Exit, Jeter. Re-enter, A-Rod? The juxtaposition was jarring.
On the Red Sox? Before the game, there was the annual presentation to the Sox minor-league award winners, one of whom, shortstop Deven Marrero, set a remarkably high bar for himself when he told reporters, "I want to be the Derek Jeter of the Red Sox."
Then there were the performance of the players the Sox put on the field, who made instant hash of any notion that Jeter had a storybook encore in the offing to his walk-off hit in Yankee Stadium, one that left Selig -- watching on TV at home -- agog and unable to sleep.
There was Kelly, who won for the fourth time in five starts while displaying what manager John Farrell described as "premium" stuff and doubling down on the Sox's trade bet that he can be a key part of the rotation going forward.
"Playing with these guys for a full year," Kelly said, "it's going to be fun."
There was the left fielder, Yoenis Cespedes, who hit run-scoring singles in each of his first two at-bats to reach 100 RBIs in a season for the first time in his career.
Assistant hitting coach Victor Rodriguez told him he was one of just nine players in the American League to reach that number.
"That's something very important to my career and something very special to me, to get to [100 RBIs] in my third year," Cespedes said through translator Adrian Lorenzo. "To be a member of that group is pretty important to me."
Since he joined the Sox at the trade deadline, Cespedes is hitting .350 with runners in scoring position (21-for-60) and has driven in 33 runs in 50 games.
"Clearly, [he is] a great presence for us," Farrell said. "An RBI guy, he has a knack for it, aggressive in the right spots."
But for how long? On Saturday afternoon, the question of his willingness to sign an extension before he becomes eligible for free agency at the end of the 2015 season was again posed to Cespedes.
"I'm still not sure if I want to sign an extension or go to free agency," he said. "[It's] too soon."
And there were the high-spirited rookies -- six of them Saturday after three straight lineups with seven -- who knocked around Masahiro Tanaka, who is still recovering from an inflamed elbow that cost him 65 games, and three Yankee relievers. The newest Cuban import, Rusney Castillo, had his first three-hit game and stole a base for the third straight game. Mookie Betts doubled, walked and scored two runs. Xander Bogaerts had two hits and scored twice. Garin Cecchini had two doubles. Christian Vazquez singled home a run. And in the midst of that, Daniel Nava drove in three runs with three hits.
"That's good -- ending on a positive note," said Bogaerts, who is four days shy of his 22nd birthday and has hit above .300 in September after imploding at the plate this summer. "We're winning games [three of the past four]. That's all we can hope for. There's a lot of confidence going into next year."
For Jeter, there is no next year -- only tomorrow and the last goodbyes. That's why, before Jeter's at-bats Saturday, special authenticated balls were delivered to plate umpire Vic Carapazza. One of those balls was hit to third baseman Cecchini, who gloved Jeter's third-inning chopper but did not have a play at first base, and Jeter was credited with an infield hit.
No, he said, he never thought about holding onto the ball as a memento -- as if anyone would have let him keep it.
"Never crossed my mind," he said with a smile. "Now, if I had thought about, maybe I would have stuck it away."
Cecchini said he'll happily settle for a handshake.
"I've asked Butter [third-base coach Brian Butterfield, one of Jeter's first coaches in the minors] to introduce us," Cecchini said. "Tomorrow, I will."