Jeter adds dramatic HR to his postseason resume

NEW YORK -- He already is a Yankee great -- right now, a very banged up Yankee great.

For Derek Jeter these days, it's tape up the shoulder, tape up the hip, tape up the foot, pack ice around so many body parts that he looks like a creature from a horror film.

"I've been asked several times about his physical well being," manager Joe Torre was saying Wednesday afternoon. "I'm sure he's not 100 percent, but he would be the last one to use that as an excuse.

"We all remember a few years ago when Kirk Gibson got up there on one leg and hit a home run. When you get to the World Series, postseason play, you go on fumes, you go on emotion, and it would be nice if he had a big game."

Like so many times before, Jeter didn't let his manager down.

Four minutes past midnight, he was circling the bases, right fist pumping the crisp November air as jubilant teammates awaited his arrival at home plate.

And when he got to the mob, he didn't just touch the plate, he attacked it -- a two-footed stomp that saved the season and maybe the dynasty, too.

"I think I broke my foot hitting the plate," he said jokingly.

It was a time for jokes, laughs and even some tears of joy.

Jeter, the most popular player on this latest championship line, had taken that most magical of runs, one that followed a World Series game-winning homer at Yankee Stadium. He had given New York a 4-3, 10-inning win that tied the World Series at two games apiece and ensured a return trip to Arizona this weekend.

"I've never hit a walkoff home run before," Jeter said.

The annual ring

He is the modern day Joe DiMaggio: Arrive and win nearly every year.

With two more wins against the Diamondbacks, Jeter achieves baseball's equivalent of an Olympian feat: five rings. That's why he didn't want to become a free agent this winter, why he signed a $189 million, 10-year contract last winter instead of following friend and fellow shortstop Alex Rodriguez out into the market.

All year long, Jeter hasn't been quite right. He missed most of spring training and the first six games of the season with shoulder and quadriceps injuries, and didn't hit his first home run until May.

He wound up batting .311 with 21 homers and 74 RBIs, but on the Yankees the regular season is just for practice.

When New York was down 0-2 against Oakland in the first round and Mike Mussina was clinging to a 1-0 lead, he came out of nowhere to save his team, making the backhand flip to nail Jeremy Giambi at the plate.

In the eighth inning of Game 5, with the Yankees ahead 5-3, he dived into the photographer's box behind third base to catch Terrence Long's foul pop.

He had been 3-for-32 since then, 1-for-15 in the World Series.

He wouldn't admit anything was wrong.

On Wednesday night, Tino Martinez had saved the Yankees against Byung-Hyun Kim with just the second bottom-of-the-ninth, two-out tying homer in Series history, matching Tom Tresh's feat for the Yankees of 1964.

Jeter had bunted his first time up against Kim, trying to gauge the side-armer's release point.

With two outs in the 10th, Jeter fell behind 0-2 in the count, then made Kim work. Jeter took a ball, fouled off two pitches, then took two more balls.

Another foul.

And then, at 12:04 a.m., with a blue moon over New York and the World Series in November for the first time, it came on Kim's 61st pitch, an opposite-field flare down the right-field line, not too far from his 1996 homer against Baltimore in the AL championship series, the ball Jeffrey Maier grabbed from the stands before Tony Tarasco could catch it.

It was the sixth final at-bat homer for the Yankees since they returned to the postseason in 1995 following a 14-year absence.