With that first at-bat, he tied Mariano Rivera with his record 19th season in Yankee pinstripes. Together they tied the MLB record of Detroit's Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker for consecutive years as teammates.

Jeter led the majors with 55 first-inning hits and 216 overall in 2012. He had decided Wednesday to swing at the first pitch and, sure enough, he swung at the first one from Ervin Santana and the slow bouncer at Tejada went for an infield hit. By the time Jeter, running on the pitch, went first to third on Robinson Cano's single and scored on Vernon Wells' sacrifice fly, Jeter's ankle sure looked fine.

"No disrespect to any rehab assignment, but this is Yankee Stadium," Jeter said. "It's a huge difference. I was nervous going into the game. It was almost like Opening Day for me. The fans were great."

With 16 players hitting the disabled list, Jeter, incredibly, became the 44th player to appear in a Yankees uniform in 2013. He was supposed to become the sixth Yankee to start at shortstop Friday. The previous five have hit a woeful .211 with a .283 slugging percentage. Make no mistake. The Yankees need his right-handed bat badly. But at what cost?

"He expects to play every day, and from that standpoint, I think we have to guard from rushing him back too much," Girardi said before the game. "In the perfect world, you'd have a month of spring training, but this has not been a perfect world this year with some of the things we've had to deal with. So it's my job to manage him physically even though he's going to want to be out there every day. We just have to be smart about it."

Jeter needs to be smart about it.

He refuses to make any concessions to age. He seems to refuse to recognize he's 39, not 29. Father Time remains unbeaten against all of us, even in the fights against Yankee gods. Jeter pushed it hard in the fifth, he hurt his quad and now it says here he'd be unwise to play again before the All-Star break.

Jeter fractured his left ankle Oct. 12 in the 12th inning of Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, ending an age-defying season of a major league-leading 216 hits. Dr. Robert Anderson repaired the fracture with screws and a steel plate on Oct. 20. Both the Yankees and Jeter insisted he would be ready for the start of the season. He didn't make it until Thursday, Game 92. There were setbacks in spring training before the team announced Jeter had a second left-ankle fracture.

"My ankle didn't break (the first time) because I was 38," Jeter said. "I think it broke because I continued to play on something that maybe I shouldn't have. I don't think age has anything to do with it.

"The second time I broke it, it was a fluke. It had been 100 percent healed. Now I'm ready to go again. I can't sit around and think about what may happen."

In his second time at-bat, Jeter was greeted with the familiar recorded introduction by Bob Sheppard. Thursday was the third anniversary of Sheppard's death at age 99. Sometimes it feels like Jeter thinks he can play to 99.

After Jeter played shortstop Wednesday night, Cashman said the plan was to have Jeter DH in Scranton on Thursday night and play shortstop in the Bronx on Friday. Jeter hasn't even played back-to-back games at short yet. Plans changed when Hafner hit a ball off his foot against the pitching machine mid-game and Gardner got hit by a pitch in the sixth inning.

"There was a vacancy," Cashman said before the game. "Derek hadn't completed the whole profile we had set up for him in his rehab. He'll have to finish off his rehab in the big leagues."

Hours later, Girardi was saying how nice it was to put Jeter's name in the lineup.

"I hope I'll get to do it again (Friday)," Girardi said.

He shouldn't. Jeter shouldn't return until after the All-Star break. Age must also bring wisdom, even for Yankee gods.