The Definitive Derek Jeter Photo (and Column)

Derek Jeter is a baseball player who played shortstop for the New York Yankees for 20 seasons, where he earned such nicknames as “The Captain” and “Mr. November.” He will retire after the Yankees final game of the 2014 season this Sunday at Boston’s historic Fenway Park. During his career, Jeter won five World Series rings and (as of Friday morning) collected 3,463 hits — good enough for sixth all-time in baseball history. He also popularized the so-called “jump throw” and served as the de facto “face of baseball” from the mid-90s right up until his final game at Yankee Stadium Thursday night — — the first home game of his entire career where New York was out of playoff contention — which was capped by his a dramatic walk-off, opposite field single in the bottom of the ninth.

Although Jeter wasn’t the greatest baseball player — or Yankee — of all time, he did have a knack for making the dramatic, “clutch” play time-after-time.

He also dated a lot of famous women, yet managed to keep his personal live mostly private even in the fishbowl known as New York City.

Yankees fans loved him. Other baseball fans willingly or begrudgingly respected Jeter because he was “classy” and/or “professional.” Meanwhile others, many with Boston zip codes, couldn’t stand “Jeets,” or at least couldn’t stand the way he was lionized and treated like a walks-on-water demigod by a fawning media, particularly during the last two weeks of September in 2014.

Jeter will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but will not receive 100.0 percent of the vote in January, 2019, setting off another slate of fun and enjoyable baseball arguments.

If he isn’t Raptured into baseball heaven after the 27th out is recorded Sunday in Fenway, that is.

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[Photo via Getty Images]