JEFFREY MAIER-ASSISTED HOME RUN IN 1996 ALCS
Derek Jeter hit the home run, but Jeffrey Maier was the reason why.
In Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS against the Orioles, the Yankees trailed 4-3 with one out in the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium. Jeter, with the bases empty, hit a deep fly ball to right field. Outfielder Tony Tarasco looked as if he were going to make the catch, but Maier, an 11-year-old Yankees fan, gave Jeter an assist, reaching over the fence and deflecting the ball over the wall.
It should have been ruled fan interference, but right-field umpire Richie Garcia missed the call, and the Yankees tied the score 4-4. When Bernie Williams hit the game-winning home run in the 11th inning, it cemented Maier’s place in Yankees’ lore — and as the defining moment of a great year for Jeter.
The 1996 campaign was Jeter’s rookie season, one in which he was named AL Rookie of the Year after batting .314 with 10 home runs and 78 RBIs.
That October was his coming-out party. Jeter batted .412 in the Yankees’ ALDS victory over the Rangers and .417 in the ALCS victory over the Orioles. On Oct. 26, Jeter scored the game-winning run —and had an RBI single and a stolen base —in Game 6 of the World Series as the Yankees closed out their first championship since 1978 by beating the Braves.
Jeter said that 1996 title was special because it was the only one of his five World Series victories in which the Yankees were not favored. The Yankees lost the first two games in the series to the defendingchampion Braves, before rattling off four consecutive victories. It started a stretch of four World Series wins in five years for the Yankees.
“It was the first. You never forget your first,” Jeter told The Post in 2016. “That was the beginning. The Yankees hadn’t won in a long time. You remember the excitement in the Stadium. You remember the excitement in the city.
“The Boss [George Steinbrenner] said if we won he’d keep us together and we continued to win.”