#HALL OF FAME SHORTSTOP SERIES#

I jumped and didn't even have a chance to catch it. I was the trail guy, but I stayed around the first base area in case he overthrew the first cutoff man. 'He would have been out from here to next week at home if he had hit the cutoff man.' If you go back and look at the hop, it would have taken Jorge away from the plate because the throw sort of started to check up, up the line.' If you think about it, if he hit either one of them, Giambi would have been thrown out by about 15 feet at home. You would assume that one of the first two cutoff men would be hit, but in that situation, he overthrew both of them. And 99.9% of the time, it's just to redirect the throw to third base. 'My job in that situation is to be the third cutoff man. It just happened to come against the A's in the playoffs.' We don't have that play happen the whole year. 'We practiced that play in spring training. You have to have someone athletic like Derek to make a decision on where the play is going to be.' 'To this day, when people talk about the play, I tell them that we work on that play in spring training, and they sort of laugh at me. It's a double cutoff play, an automatic double-cut play on that ball down the right-field line.' 'It's one of those plays where it's a sure triple as soon as it goes over the bag. Tino Martinez, Yankees first baseman, 1996-2001, 2005 I was in the position I was supposed to be. So when hit the ball down the line, it was something I had prepared for. You have all these checkpoints in your head. You know, you have a guy on second base, you're playing shortstop and you know where you're going to go if you go to your left or your right, you're coming in, you know the speed of the runner, you know the different circumstances, you know which runners run hard, which don't. You know athletes talk about how they slow down the game, they slow down when you prepare. I always just run through all the possible scenarios in my head before they happen. Take a look back at Yankees icon Derek Jeter's most memorable moments.

'And you'll never see it again,' he says. 'I'm certainly happy the first time watching it was in Game 3 of the division series.' 'I've never seen that play,' says then-Yankees manager Joe Torre, who has spent 60 years in the major leagues as a player, manager and executive. The best part about that play, though, is that no one involved in it had ever seen it made before, or since. Was Giambi told to slide by Ramon Hernandez, the on-deck circle hitter? Would Giambi have been safe if Spencer had hit one of the two cutoff men? Would Giambi have been sent home if either of the cutoff men had been hit? And what was Jeter doing all the way over on the first-base line on that play, anyway? Was Giambi really out at the plate? Oakland pitcher Barry Zito, and several other A's, said at the time that he was safe. Should Giambi have slid on that play? Most involved agree that he should have, and likely would have been safe. What makes The Flip even more intriguing is the debate still surrounding it. The flip was incredible, but to be in that position, I really don't know what he was thinking. 'Jeter was a thorn in my side for a long time, but it was an amazing play he made. 'You've opened up an old wound for me,' says Art Howe, then the A's manager.

#HALL OF FAME SHORTSTOP SERIES#

The Yankees won the game 1-0, then won the next two to advance to the American League Championship Series and ultimately the World Series. Jeter raced across the diamond, fielded the ball on one hop in foul territory between first and home, and made a backhand flip to catcher Jorge Posada, who tagged out Giambi on a very close play at the plate. Yankees right fielder Shane Spencer fielded it in the right-field corner but overthrew two cutoff men - second baseman Alfonso Soriano and first baseman Tino Martinez. With two outs and Jeremy Giambi on first, Terrence Long hit a hard ground ball over the first-base bag.

Oakland held a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series but trailed 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning of Game 3 on Oct. It occurred in the 2001 American League Division Series between the Yankees and Oakland Athletics. Like many unforgettable plays, it has a nickname. It is one of the most famous plays in the history of postseason baseball, one that has been replayed hundreds of times every October for 20 years. It is the most iconic, most brilliant play in the career of New York Yankees Hall of Fame shortstop Derek Jeter, the play that personifies his remarkable combination of athleticism, agility and, most important, awareness.

Hall of fame shortstop