As midnight on Opening Day 2003 approaches, I find myself full of mixed emotions. Elated over Soriano's slam, Matsui's go-the-other way RBI, Clemens 294th. But still a little sickened, nail-biting, fretful, over Jeter's dislocated shoulder.

Writhing on the ground for twelve minutes after the collision. Grimacing, reportedly screaming (at least according to the NY Times online postgame report), clutching his shoulder, biting his lip, unable to get up...

You never want to see someone in that much pain in front of you. Cablevision and YES worked out a last minute deal that got the game onto cable in 3 million more homes and the first thing they saw was something that made them wish they were listening to the radio.

You never want to see a player in that much agony. You especially never want to see your star player, the "heart and soul" of the team (or so the AP report on the incident named him) downed, gritting his teeth.

I have seen worse. I was at Fenway Park the night that Bryce Florie came on in relief. He had given up a single to Jeter and then was facing Ryan Thompson. If you don't remember Florie or Thompson's names it is no surprise, neither of them was ever near the top of the major league roster for either team. Thompson hit Florie's first pitch right back at him and shattered Florie's eyesocket and nose. From the stands all we saw was Florie fall face down on the mound and start kicking his legs up and down. When a grown man kicks his legs like that, you know something horrible has just occurred. There was so much blood that Florie's teammates who ran to his side had to turn away. Yankees, even tough-guy Jose Canseco, wept in the dugout.

Believe it or not, Florie fought his way back onto a Major League mound over a year later, but even with contacts his eyesight was only 20-60 and he could not compete at the Major League level. His triumph was just to return to the field of play.

Jeter's injury will not be like that. Or so I tell myself, to keep my spirits up. Jeter's injury, for one thing, is not life-threatening. It is probably not even career-threatening. But still.

You never want to see a human being in such distress. The Yankees closed around him like an honor guard, while both trainers, all the coaches, and even an ex-Met who is now a team surgeon for the Blue Jays hovered over him. They all know the value of that body writhing on the ground, and the player housed within it. Priceless. Jeter had doubled in the first and come home on Matsui's RBI knock. He had reached in the third on a walk, and tried to go first to third on a Giambi roller because no one was covering the bag, thanks to the Giambi shift.

In the forties they used to call it The Williams Shift, for Ted Williams. The idea belonged to a manager Lou Boudreau and he wanted it to be called the Boudreau shift, but how many people remember Boudreau's name today, versus those who know of the Splendid Splinter?

Will the only reason Ken Huckaby's name will still be spoken a decade from now be because he will be known as the man who ruined Derek Jeter? Please, no. Let this injury, like all the setbacks in Jeter's career, from homesickness in rookie ball to newspaper spats with George Steinbrenner, be minor and be overcome by Derek's calm and indomitable spirit.

The bell rang on a new season today and Derek Jeter answered it. The raging, angry part of me wants to blame the injury on someone. Blame Halladay for walking him. Blame Steinbrenner for trying to "motivate" through criticism a player who needs no extra motivation. Blame Huckaby for not covering sooner (or later) and avoiding a collision. Blame Jeter for being too damn heads-up and too damn hungry to let that empty base lie there complacently.

Two ironies. One, the collision knocked Jeter off the bag and he was tagged out to end the inning. Two, all the papers today crowed about how healthy he was. Blame the papers for jinxing him.

I worry that Jeter's story, years from now, will be akin to Don Mattingly's. One of the Yankee greats, but who never reached his full potential, never reached the Hall of Fame, due to suffering with a chronic injury all the later years of his career. Please, no. The ride has been too wonderful since 1996, this can't be it, can it? I am sure the same thoughts went through the minds of Jeter's parents, maybe even Derek himself, while he was lying there.

You never want to see such unmitigated suffering. After twelve minutes, they carted him off. Normally one expects an injured athlete to go directly to the hospital, and later, to the hotel with a heavy sedative. But this is Derek Jeter we're talking about. Mr. Responsibility. Our trooper Derek couldn't go to the hospital until they put the shoulder back in the socket, a process he described as the most painful thing of all. He described it at a press conference he held at the Skydome after the game, where he returned after X-rays, his arm taped down in a sling.

The Yankees had no problems kicking Blue Jay tailfeathers after Jeter went down. Halladay, who usually pitches them tough, gave up a two run homer to Robin Ventura and a grand slam (runs unearned) to Alfonso Soriano, who had nearly homered in his previous two at bats (one caught at the wall, one banged off the wall for a double). And Enrique Wilson, who came in to play short, ended the third inning with a sparkling play.

Still, one game, one win, does not mean much compared to Jeter's worth to the team. And so the season opens on an ominous note. We do not know how long he will be out. It could be anywhere from two weeks to the whole year. Now we have to rely on the rest of the team to rise up against adversity, to rally after the fall of a comrade. And if I know the Yankees, they will.