Back on 12 February, Derek Jeter took to Facebook to announce that the 2014 season would be his last in Yankees pinstripes. Since then, his legion of fans have had 25 September circled on their calendars – regardless of whether or not New York reached the playoffs, it would be the final regular-season home game of Jeter’s 20-year, Hall-of-Fame career.

Now that the date has finally arrived … and a Nor’easter has settled over Gotham, threatening to rain on a season-long parade.

Traditionally, baseball does not make up late-season rainouts that have no bearing on the standings. The Yankees are no longer in playoff contention, after losing to the Baltimore Orioles 9-5 on Wednesday, and the American League East-champion O’s have already wrapped up home-field advantage in the Divisional Series.

Technically, the Orioles could need the game to try to finish with the best record in the AL, and thus take home-field advantage in a Championship Series against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, if such a scenario should play out. And while Baltimore and their manager, Buck Showalter – Jeter’s first Yankees manager, coincidently – would likely have no interest in traveling back to New York to make up the contest on Monday 29 September, they would have no choice.

Major League Baseball told the Guardian that the Orioles would be forced to play and settle the matter – if it needed settling. As the Halos hold a two-and-a-half game advantage with three to play, it’s still unlikely. And there is no way in the world Baltimore would play the game simply to satisfy Yankees fans seeking to laud their captain one more time.

There is also the issue of the tickets. Jeter’s retirement announcement set the secondary market alight, with some paying $248 for outfield bleachers seats for his final home game and seats next to the dugout going for as much as $10,000. Now the question is, what happens if such buyers are left holding some very expensive paper (or kilobytes) for a game that was never played?

Here, with assistance from Connor Gregoire of seatgeek.com, is a breakdown:

Gregoire told the Guardian that if the game is not played, those who bought their tickets from major, legitimate resellers such as SeatGeek or StubHub will simply get their money back.

Those who scalped the tickets on the street or, say, found them on craigslist, will almost definitely lose their investment, unless they can track down the reseller and convince them to provide a refund. Good luck with that.

More likely, such ticket-holders would have the same rights as those who bought the tickets at face value from the Yankees – either a refund at face value or a ticket of equal or lesser value for a game in the 2015 season. Such tickets would thus be worth a fraction of the price paid to watch Jeter swing the bat at home one last time.

The group at biggest risk are the big boys of the secondary market, the companies – all such sales, some $12.5m across roughly 30,000 transactions at about $415 a ticket, would have to be unwound, and so all such proceeds would be sucked out of such companies’ coffers for good.

It seems pretty straightforward. But consider this wild scenario:

The Yankees open the doors on Thursday night, Jeter gets a couple of swings, but then the game is called before it is official – that would be after 4.5 innings if the Yankees are ahead, or five innings if the Orioles are ahead. That would mean the game would not count and secondary market ticket holders would get their money back, having watched Jeter’s final swings in New York for free during a game that didn’t register in his official statistics.

So yes, there is a lot of money on the line for multiple parties and that is why the Yankees will do absolutely everything to open the doors and get the game played, including waiting and waiting and waiting for any break in the weather. It’s a guaranteed sellout, and memorabilia sales and so on will also help provide one more big haul for what has already been a cash bonanza in an otherwise underwhelming season, all thanks to Jeter’s retirement.

The last question floating around River Avenue is whether or not Jeter will suit up in Boston to face the Red Sox in the final regular-season series of the year, starting at Fenway Park on Friday night. It wasn’t one Jeter felt like answering during the 9-5 Wednesday loss that officially ousted the Yankees from the postseason festivities:

You’ve got to respect the fact that we just lost. I can’t tell you about Boston.

On Wednesday, Jeter’s possible final Yankee Stadium swing brought an eighth-inning groundout. In the bottom of the ninth, Brett Gardner was up, seeking to extend the inning, which would have brought No2 to the plate one last time.

But the center fielder was called out on strikes, and Jeter was left standing in the on-deck circle.