"Number 2. Derek Jetah. Number 2"

Joe Posnanski and Michael Schur -- he of Parks & Recreation and Fire Joe Morgan fame -- discuss the impending free agency of Derek Jeter, and what he, and the Yankees will do.

How will the Yankees handle this? How will Jeter handle this? Schur concedes that he thinks about little else. “It’s absolutely fascinating, isn’t it?” he asks. Michael has gotten so little joy and so much heartache in his life out of hating Jeter. “The guy does everything right,” he says, shaking his head sadly. Hating Jeter, for Michael, for many, has been like hating libraries or like hating walkathons for good causes … you can certainly do it, I suppose, but it can’t really make you feel too good.

But now … Michael and others can see it: Terrible Ending cometh. There seems now way for boat to miss iceberg on this one. Jeter may yet have another renaissance, he may yet have another season in the sun. Or he may not. But either way, he is coming to the end as a player … and nobody seems to have an exit strategy. “I’m obsessed with it,” Michael says, and he’s as happy as a Boston fan can be with his Red Sox 8 1/2 games out. “I mean, Jeter is a student of the game. He knows the situation. But I’ve been over and over it, and there’s no way around it. The disaster is coming.”

“Well,” I say to Michael, “what if he signs a short-term deal, or what if he gets hit 3,000th hit and retires, or what if he moves to the outfield and slowly reduces his role as his skills diminish and becomes the spiritual leader of the Yankees?”

Michael Schur looks at me with this funny look of disgust.

“Yep,” he says. “It would be just like him to figure a way out, wouldn’t it?”

Derek lined a double and had a couple of good, Jeterian swings yesterday. Reports of his death may still be premature.