Nothing Short of Amazing

MIAMI —  He’s a top button against the first crisp wind of winter. He’s a hand digging deep into a bowl of Three Musketeers. He’s a running leap into a pile of leaves.

He owns this month like Reggie never could. He owns this month’s baseball team like the Boss never would.

He is not simply Mr. October, he is Sir October, the Duke of October, his Royal Highness, October.

He is Derek Jeter, and he is upon us again, through the rain and mud and midnight broil of a fuming south Florida, carrying yet another New York Yankee team on dirt-stained pinstripes toward a championship.

Late Tuesday evening, Game 3 of the World Series, the Florida Marlins had a 1-0 lead, their best pitcher on the mound and a good old-fashioned swamp storm on deck.

The Yankees? They had Jeter. They had enough.

He collected his team’s first hit off Florida’s Josh Beckett and came around to tie the score at 1-1.

He collected his team’s second hit off Beckett, beginning an inning that wore the pitcher out.

He collected his team’s third and final hit off Beckett, sneaked to third base, and came around to score the go-ahead run in the eighth inning of an eventual 6-1 victory.

Is it any wonder what happened afterward? The final out was made and every Yankee jogged toward the middle of the diamond except Jeter.

That’s because they were all jogging toward him.

For eight years and four championships, they have been jogging toward him, this man with the movie-star looks and Midwestern work ethic.

He stood with his padded and mud-caked right arm raised as the Yankees surrounded their captain, his nameless jersey disappearing amid the other nameless jerseys, just as he likes it.

“You look in his eyes, you see something special,” Manager Joe Torre said afterward.

We’ve all seen it. For seemingly forever, we’ve seen it.

Derek Jeter is the one who saved one Yankee championship by intercepting a relay throw and flipping it behind his back to the catcher. He is the one who braked the Subway Series to a halt, inspiring another championship with a leadoff homer at Shea Stadium.

Remember his game-winning, walk-off homer in the World Series against Arizona? Remember how he pilfered third base with nobody looking last year against the Angels?

Nobody in baseball history has more postseason hits than Jeter, who tells you that it doesn’t matter.

But nobody has made as many spectacular postseason plays as Jeter, who cannot argue.

“I like to believe they’re all special,” Torre said. “But I’ve been watching this guy for eight years and . . . “

And look at his performance Tuesday and see what Torre is talking about.

In the first inning against Beckett, he struck out on three pitches, swinging through a 97-mph fastball on the third strike, looking silly.

So what did he do? It’s what he didn’t do. He didn’t moan, he didn’t whine, he didn’t look at the umpire.

He thought about the pitches, and he learned.

“My first at-bat, I swung at a couple of pitches up in the zone,” he said. “After that, I just tried to get them down.”

So went the plan of a man who did not swing and miss at another Beckett pitch again.

In the fourth inning, he watched a ball, then slashed a double into the left-field corner for the first hit of the game, eventually scoring on a bases-loaded walk.

In the sixth inning, he watched two more balls before hitting a single to left. His patience was infectious, as his team worked Beckett for several long counts that inning before finally succumbing.

Then came the eighth inning, a late inning, Jeter’s favorite time.

He took ball one, then stunned the Marlins by hitting the ball the other way, bouncing a grounder inside the right-field line for a double.

No, kids, he didn’t try to be a hero and pull the ball for a home run. And, yeah kids, he caught Marlin Derrek Lee playing too far off the line at first base.

“How many guys in this room thought Jeter was gonna hit it in the right-field line?” Marlin Manager Jack McKeon asked later, when questioned about his positioning. “We didn’t.”

But that wasn’t even Jeter’s best play of the inning. That occurred two batters later, when, knowing center fielder Juan Pierre doesn’t have a great arm and would have little traction on a wet field, he sneaked to third base on a fly out.

Moments later, he scored the go-ahead run on Hideki Matsui’s single to medium left field. Turns out, Jeff Conine probably would have thrown him out at the plate if he had started at second.

“We’ve been in close games that we’ve won, close games that we’ve lost,” Jeter said later, ice bags on both arms. “I think the experience helps in terms of keeping your emotions under control.”

Indeed, in the ninth inning, Braden Looper’s pitch hit him in the left arm, and you know what he did? Nothing. He didn’t point or yell or threaten. He simply walked to first base, and think about it.

Have you ever seen Derek Jeter argue with an umpire? Have you ever seen him strut or pose? When George Steinbrenner complained about his partying this spring, it was such a ridiculous charge, both men later made a commercial about it.

When Steinbrenner made him captain of the team during the middle of the summer, the team settled down.

And when he came to the plate Tuesday, the game was over.

It was like that for Reggie Jackson once.

For Derek Jeter, it has been like that forever.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.