As New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter completes his last home game this week, the void that he’ll leave behind will be impossible to fill.
Jeter has embodied Greatness in his poise, leadership and hard work throughout twenty seasons in Major League Baseball, and after his final game, professional sports will have lost an icon.
Jeter’s sendoff is bittersweet. With the sporting world currently saturated with one scandal after another, Jeter is a polar opposite to what we have come to expect from professional athletes. What are the odds that an athlete can play a sport at the highest level, starting at just nineteen years old–in the Greatest media market in the world–and have such a legendary career without scandal?
We can thank his parents for that.