Jimmy Rollins is back in the spotlight, and he loves it there.

"He likes the moment," said Charlie Manuel. "He wants it."

Derek Jeter doesn't just thrive in the spotlight, he lives in it, in the constant glare of New York, the Yankees and the career-long expectations that his No.2 would one day join the franchise's litany of retired single digits.

Tonight, when the 2009 World Series begins at Yankee Stadium, those two shortstops, the building blocks and linchpins of their pennant-winning teams, will experience the glow together.

"Rollins and Jeter, there's two great players right there," the Phillies' Shane Victorino said last week. "They've been around longer than anybody, and they're the guys who get their teams going."

That connection - two talented, top-of-the-order, African American shortstops, red-light players who are the soul of their teams - should provide one of the more interesting battles within the battle as the Phillies and Yankees meet in postseason play for the first time in 59 years.

Rollins is an all-star and an MVP. He's won Gold Gloves and a Silver Slugger. He owns a handful of franchise and big-league records and hits leadoff for the defending World Series He wears sunglasses at night, runs a record label, and can superstar shuffle with the best of them.

But all that doesn't mean he's above asking for advice. Watch how often he'll approach Manuel in the dugout after a bad at-bat, or a good at-bat, or in between at-bats.

So it was hardly surprising that when he found himself as the backup to Jeter in the World Baseball Classic earlier this year, Rollins decided to pick the future Hall of Famer's brain.

"Well, I did ask him about defending a championship, and he gave me some advice that I could take back to the team and share with the guys," Rollins said, noting that Jeter's Yankees of 1998-2000 were the last teams to win back-to-back Series. "Other people will be trying to steal the formula.

"We talked about a number of things," he said, "just different approaches to take ground balls, what to do in a situation when it gets big and everybody is getting excited, how to keep yourself calm in the game and not get caught up."

Now the two are sharing one of those big situations.

Now the two shortstops who provide offensive, defensive and motivational sparks for their clubs will get to gauge their considerable skills on the same field.

Now the only questions will come from the media hordes.

Now we'll see how good Jeter's advice was.

"Both those guys are good, real good," said Dodgers third-base coach Larry Bowa, who has managed or coached both. "They're the ones who started the turnarounds in both those cities."

Rollins arrived in Philadelphia in 2001, a year after Terry Francona's last club went 65-97.

Bowa immediately inserted the rookie into his starting lineup, and he stayed there to greet Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, and the rest of the nucleus that would win the Phils the 2008 World Series.

"You know, actually it's been a fun time since I've gotten to this organization," Rollins said at last year's World Series. "I was drafted back in '96, and things were definitely a little different. The Phils weren't used to winning. But Ed Wade did a good job drafting guys that were built to win, built to be good players and stay for the long run. . . . It started with just the mental part of the organization changing, not just going out there to compete. And we were for years, just going out and trying to compete. I think the organization, the players got tired of that, and we want to win. We just don't want to get here and compete."

Not surprisingly, given that Jeter's tenure has played out as perfectly as a Hollywood script, it was the Yankee shortstop's arrival as a full-time player in New York in 1996 - along with that of manager Joe Torre - that sparked this most recent Yankee renaissance.

With Jeter at short, the Yankees won four World Series in his first five years and, with highlight-reel dives into the stands and impossible backhand tosses at home plate, the legend grew. Soon he was their captain.

"He won Rookie of the Year in '96, won a World Series, playing for the New York Yankees, single, 22 years old," Torre said recently. "I remember calling him in and having a talk with him about his priorities. He looks me right in the eye and says: 'I know.' And he did."

This season, Jeter, who's 35 now, passed Lou Gehrig to become the Yankees' all-time base-hit leader, further ensuring that No. 6 will soon be the only single-digit Yankee number available.

"The important thing is for us to win games," said manager Joe Girardi. "Jeter's always been all about winning, doing what it takes. Nothing about his numbers, but wins" are what get him going.

Rollins, 30, finally experienced the ultimate in winning last year. It was, for him at least, a proper exclamation point on a career marked as much by striving as thriving.

"People don't see the work that Jimmy puts in . . . going into the cage and watching video, doing whatever it takes to get his swing right," said teammate Ryan Howard. "He has the utmost confidence in his abilities and in his swing. He's in there working . . . doing one-hand drills, doing stuff off the tee, doing stuff, getting flips, front-side toss, all kind of stuff. But people don't see that."

What they see are moments like the one that occurred in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series last week.

With two on and two outs in the ninth inning of a game the Phillies trailed by a run, Rollins lasered a game-winning double off the Dodgers' Jonathan Broxton.

"It felt good. It definitely felt good," Rollins said of that spotlit hit. "It's one of those situations where I wasn't afraid. I've faced him a number of times before, and that always helps when you're familiar with the guy, his movement, what his ball is going to do, and he's pretty much thrown me all fastballs. I've fouled off a couple sliders in the past. But the fact that he's a closer, 100 miles per hour, he's going to give you his best. If he's going to lose, he's going to lose with his best."

And when this World Series is over, because of Jeter and Rollins, the 2009 runners-up will be able to say the same.

Contact staff writer Frank Fitzpatrick at 215-854-5068 or ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com.