Derek Jeter did what Derek Jeter does at his final New York Yankees home game Thursday.

He drove in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning.

"Today was my last game playing shortstop," Jeter said during a post-game news conference, saying he would play designated hitter against the Red Sox because he didn't want to disappoint the fans. This was his last game on the field at shortstop, he said.

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A living baseball legend who captained the storied New York franchise to five world championships, Jeter did the probable on a night when everything seemed to conspire to make the improbable possible.

Jeter's scoring line in the final game of his career: Walk-off RBI, 2-5 with a double.

After 20 years of Hall of Fame play, after being a part of 1,626 Yankee regular season wins and five World Series championships, the Yankee captain began his trip into Cooperstown by hitting a double and driving in a run in his first at-bat. He later scored.

Jeter ended the game with an RBI groundout in the bottom of the ninth. In between, 48,613 fans packing new Yankee Stadium rocked the stadium to its foundation his every movement.

The game wasn't even supposed to happen. Weather forecasters cast dire predictions of rain all day and through the night. With this being the last Bronx home game, and the last regular season day available for play, a rain cancelled game could never be rescheduled, MLB said.

Maybe Orioles manager Buck Showalter, Jeter's first MLB manager his 1995 rookie season, knew Jeter, or the weather, too well. With a blink of the eye, the day before, Showalter said he wasn't worried about a cancellation because they'll find some way to play this game.

Showalter was right. Lo and behold, not a raindrop was in sight for Jeter's last home stand.

The rest of the game seemed almost an afterthought as the Yankees forged a 5-2 lead going into the top of the ninth. Closer David Robertson, who had blown only four saves in 32 opportunities this year, tragically coughed up the lead.

It may have been the greatest blown save in baseball history. All that did was set the stage for Jeter's grand finale.

Jeter later said he would have cried had the game ended with the 5-2 score. When he drove in teammate Antoan Richardson with the game-winning RBI, he felt something entirely different, "an out-of-body experience is the best way to put it," he put it later.

The crowd erupted. Jeter held the post-game stage with the stadium rocking for 25 minutes. Following on-field interviews and something else that had never happened before, teammates, in this case C.C. Sabathia, dumped Gatorade on his head.

Then, former teammates from the Yankees glory years, the so-called core four of Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams and Andy Pettitte along with longtime manager Joe Torre, as a group greeted and embraced the captain, a star among stars.

With Orioles players applauding and the stadium rocking, Jeter took one more moment to pause, kneeled and considered his vacated position. "I wanted to take one last view from short," he said.

Jeter and the Yankees are off to Fenway Park where he was expected to take a few at-bats as designated hitter before going retiring.

After that, it's off to Cooperstown for the Yankee star and a trip through the fast lane into baseball immortality.

Tagsderek jeter, Baseball, mlb, new york yankees, Hall of fame, derek jeter last game, derek jeter stats, Yankees, mariano rivera, boston red sox, yankee stadium