82CardsGrad
7 x 70
I admit my bias... He's one of my alltime favorites. And at 35 , is having one of his best years ever.
Jeter hitting monumental heights
Derek Jeter was lucky to be born with the blessed countenance that baseball scouts refer to as "the good face." Judging from his dating history, nine out of 10 supermodels, actresses, pop singers and Miss Universe contestants would agree.
But Jeter is not of the opinion that fame, talent and his Driven cologne line should give the public a window into his soul -- or even a box seat. He is, by all accounts, conscious of his role model status, careful of his associations and protective of his privacy.
So don't expect Jeter to share insights on his favorite restaurants or dish out Billy Wagner-style opinions on today's hot baseball topics. He's even diplomatic on the subject of Jim Rice, who recently lumped him in with Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and all those other long-haired, baggy-pants-wearing reprobates who are destroying the game.
"I had no idea where that came from," Jeter says. "I don't know Jim Rice. Congratulations to him for making the Hall of Fame."
Nevertheless, Jeter has his Kryptonite moments. Like any star athlete and competitor, he is sensitive to the perception that his skills might have eroded even a little bit. That was clearly the case during the World Baseball Classic in March, when Jeter looked mediocre at the plate and range-bound next to teammate Jimmy Rollins in the field, and the term "twilight years" began making the rounds.
"Jeter, Face of the U.S. Team, Is Showing Age," ran the headline in the New York Times.
Since flashes of anger would have been counterproductive, Jeter internalized the doubts of others. Only he knows how much it drove him in the batting cage in Tampa during spring training. He strays from the usual array of vanilla quotes and concedes the talk was in the back of his mind.
"Last I checked, I didn't think 35 was old," Jeter says.
"When you play in New York, criticism is part of the game. It's just how you respond to it. It's not like I'll read an article that someone writes and say, 'Aw, I'm going to get them back.' I always take criticism as a challenge."
Some ballplayers might whine when confronted with the observation that they're on the top half of a downhill slope. Jeter simply shut up and hit.
He hit his way to another All-Star Game and MVP consideration this season on a Yankees team with the best record in baseball. During one recent stretch, Jeter banged out 36 hits in 77 at-bats. He broke Luis Aparicio's record for career hits by a shortstop, and reached the 2,700 mark earlier than anyone except Hank Aaron and Robin Yount. Jeter will soon record the 10th 190-hit season of his career, which will tie him with Stan Musial for third most all-time behind Pete Rose (13) and Ty Cobb (12).
Next on his agenda: The Iron Horse.
Jeter enters Friday's game in Toronto with 2,713 hits, and is closing in on Lou Gehrig's franchise record of 2,721. For a player who's so steeped in Yankees history and obsessed with consistency, it's a mind-blowing achievement.
"Anytime you talk about any of the Yankee greats, it's a big deal," Jeter says. "To pass Lou Gehrig in strikeouts would be a big deal, because your name is on that list. It's kind of hard to believe."
Talk of the clubhouse
Jeter's revival has amazed his teammates, even those who've been around and have a high threshold for amazement. After Jeter began a recent game with a single, Mark Teixeira turned to hitting coach Kevin Long and joked that it might be easier and less time-consuming to just award him first base.
"We've started to tease him," Johnny Damon says. "We'll ask him, 'What record are you going to break today?' This is definitely the best streak I've seen him on since I've been here. If he has three hits, he wants four, and then he wants everyone else to get a hit so he can come up again and get five. I think he smells 3,000 hits. And he smells the postseason run that we could possibly have."
Jeter's revival is attributable in part to good health. He suffered a strained left thigh in April 2008, then got smoked in the hand by a Daniel Cabrera fastball a month later. The first injury did a number on his legs, and the second one put a crimp in his ability to drive the ball.
"People were ready to downgrade him, but I don't think they took into account how much the leg injury bothered him," Yankees broadcaster Ken Singleton says. The defensive metrics show that Jeter is getting to more balls at shortstop, and he has 23 stolen bases compared to only 11 last season, so he's a walking testament to the importance of having a solid base.
Jeter's .330 average is more a tribute to his "back to basics" style of hitting. Fans might remember Cal Ripken Jr. as the quintessential fiddler, a player whose stance and hand positioning were subject to change from game to game and at-bat to at-bat. Jeter, in contrast, is a classic creature of habit.
He begins each plate appearance by planting his right foot firmly in the box. Before the pitcher delivers, Jeter will brush a hand over his mouth, his ear flap and the bill of his helmet, then extend his right arm toward the umpire for an extra moment to collect himself. He holds the bat high, lowers it, then raises it again in a gentle rocking motion, while slightly arching his back.
And finally, when pitchers try to jam him with fastballs, Jeter pulls his hands inside the ball and rains foul pops into the first-base box seats until he finds a pitch he really likes. He'll either line it to right field or get the bat head out and pull it to left.
There was no "Eureka!" moment when a coach told him the secret to success was to "keep your hands inside the ball." But that philosophy has formed the backbone of Jeter's approach since he was a teenager.
"I think if you have that type of swing, you're able to hit a lot more pitches," Jeter says. "Fastballs in, you can hit. Offspeed pitches, you're not really going to pull them foul too much. That's just a philosophy I've always had, and I've never really changed it."
The same goes for the mental approach and preparation that Jeter brings to the batter's box. He has never been one to cloud his thinking with arcane data or an obsession with pitchers' tendencies.
"He's not anal about his mechanics," Long says. "I think that's the neatest thing about him. Some hitters want to know a pitcher's 'out' pitch, or what the guy is going to throw with runners in scoring position. Jeter doesn't want to know that. All he wants to know is their repertoire, and he's looking to hit off the fastball. It's the simplest approach you could have to hitting."
All that weeding-out would be worthless, of course, without natural ability, and Jeter's talents were evident from the beginning. Dick Groch, the former Yankees scout who signed him, was smitten after watching Jeter field grounders, take batting practice and run the 60-yard-dash at an All-Star camp in Mount Morris, Mich., in the summer of 1990.
There was only one red flag: When Groch saw Jeter's wiry frame and that inside-out swing, he figured power pitchers could knock the bat out of the kid's hands. He got his answer on a cold, blustery Michigan day 17 years ago, when Jeter turned on an inside fastball and bombed it to left. The Jeter family house was adjacent to the high school field, and Derek nearly conked it.
"I've been doing this for 40-some years now and I've said it 100 times, 'It's like going to the Kentucky Derby or the county fair,' " Groch says. "When you see the stallion, you see it, and it still takes your breath away."
Groch divides hitters into three categories: Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield and Josh Hamilton are prime examples of "bat speed" guys. Rafael Palmeiro and Ken Griffey Jr. fall into the "balance and body control" category. And Jeter belongs with Pete Rose, George Brett, Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs in the "hand-eye coordination" group.
"He hits the Derek Jeter way," Groch says. "He's no different now than he was at Kalamazoo Central High School."
Memory lane
At times like this, it's natural to take a breath and consider what might have been. In June 1992, Stanford outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds was high on the Yankees' draft board, but he went to Baltimore with the fourth pick in the first round.
As the story goes, Groch and the team brass were in a meeting discussing Jeter's future when scouting director Bill Livesey cited the prevailing sentiment that the kid was bound for the University of Michigan.
"He's not going to Michigan," Groch said. "The only place he's going is to Cooperstown."
Hits2nd (2,713)Stolen bases2nd (298)Runs4th (1,562)Singles1st (1,996)HBP1st (142)At-bats1st (8,565)
Hits2nd (2,713)Stolen bases2nd (298)Runs4th (1,562)Singles1st (1,996)HBP1st (142)At-bats1st (8,565)
A baseball lifetime later, Jeter is a 10-time All-Star and Groch is now a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers. His personal memorabilia collection includes a 1932 Yankees baseball with Babe Ruth's signature in the sweet spot and Gehrig's autograph beneath it. It recently struck Groch that Jeter's name now ranks up there with Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and Yogi Berra on a bunch of franchise top 10 lists.
Jeter has also experienced a few moments of reverie lately. He laughs when recalling how the Yankees listed him at 6-foot-3, 175 pounds when he signed his first pro contract. Jeter's height was embellished from his days as a high school basketball player in Kalamazoo, and the 175-pound figure was pure fiction.
"When I weighed in with the Yankees the first day, I was 154 pounds," Jeter says. "I thought they were going to send me home."
They never did, and now Jeter's "greatest hits" collection includes the Jeremy Giambi lateral, dives into the stands for foul pops by Trot Nixon and Terrence Long, and the Jeffrey Maier home run. He also endured a 32 at-bat hitless streak in 2004, and looked so lost that New York cab drivers and doormen felt the urge to commiserate and offer words of encouragement.
Jeter is so revered in baseball circles, one general manager said he'll be "done" with the game if it ever comes to light that Jeter used performance-enhancing drugs. In a rare flash of emotion, Jeter held court on the topic in spring training. He told reporters that he's never touched a steroid, never will and takes issue with the perception that "everybody's doing it." He wants people to know that everybody isn't doing it.
If the cynics in the blogosphere think baseball writers are infatuated with Jeter, they should hear his peers gush about him.
"When I look at him, I see a guy who's got his act together," Atlanta third baseman Chipper Jones says. "A guy who is a winner, who does everything the right way, and deserves everything that he gets."
Braves manager Bobby Cox is equally effusive.
"There are a couple of guys I really admire -- Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter," Cox says. "I follow Tigers Woods and watch his interviews. I follow Derek and I watch his interviews, and they're both as professional as you would ever want."
A skeptic might see Jeter's guarded approach to public relations and judge him guilty of "brand awareness," but that terminology seems out of place for a 35-year-old man who plays baseball with an exuberance typically reserved for Williamsport. That sense of joy is apparent in Jeter's body language and written all over his face this season.
If 2008 was a drag, 2009 has been a succession of "Turn Back the Clock" days.
"People always say, 'Is the clubhouse looser this year?' " Jeter says. "Of course it is, because we're winning. I'd be lying if I told you this year wasn't fun."
The fun is back, the hits are falling like rain and Lou Gehrig is next in line. There's no telling how long this could last.
Jeter hitting monumental heights
Derek Jeter was lucky to be born with the blessed countenance that baseball scouts refer to as "the good face." Judging from his dating history, nine out of 10 supermodels, actresses, pop singers and Miss Universe contestants would agree.
But Jeter is not of the opinion that fame, talent and his Driven cologne line should give the public a window into his soul -- or even a box seat. He is, by all accounts, conscious of his role model status, careful of his associations and protective of his privacy.
So don't expect Jeter to share insights on his favorite restaurants or dish out Billy Wagner-style opinions on today's hot baseball topics. He's even diplomatic on the subject of Jim Rice, who recently lumped him in with Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and all those other long-haired, baggy-pants-wearing reprobates who are destroying the game.
"I had no idea where that came from," Jeter says. "I don't know Jim Rice. Congratulations to him for making the Hall of Fame."
Nevertheless, Jeter has his Kryptonite moments. Like any star athlete and competitor, he is sensitive to the perception that his skills might have eroded even a little bit. That was clearly the case during the World Baseball Classic in March, when Jeter looked mediocre at the plate and range-bound next to teammate Jimmy Rollins in the field, and the term "twilight years" began making the rounds.
"Jeter, Face of the U.S. Team, Is Showing Age," ran the headline in the New York Times.
Since flashes of anger would have been counterproductive, Jeter internalized the doubts of others. Only he knows how much it drove him in the batting cage in Tampa during spring training. He strays from the usual array of vanilla quotes and concedes the talk was in the back of his mind.
"Last I checked, I didn't think 35 was old," Jeter says.
"When you play in New York, criticism is part of the game. It's just how you respond to it. It's not like I'll read an article that someone writes and say, 'Aw, I'm going to get them back.' I always take criticism as a challenge."
Some ballplayers might whine when confronted with the observation that they're on the top half of a downhill slope. Jeter simply shut up and hit.
He hit his way to another All-Star Game and MVP consideration this season on a Yankees team with the best record in baseball. During one recent stretch, Jeter banged out 36 hits in 77 at-bats. He broke Luis Aparicio's record for career hits by a shortstop, and reached the 2,700 mark earlier than anyone except Hank Aaron and Robin Yount. Jeter will soon record the 10th 190-hit season of his career, which will tie him with Stan Musial for third most all-time behind Pete Rose (13) and Ty Cobb (12).
Next on his agenda: The Iron Horse.
Jeter enters Friday's game in Toronto with 2,713 hits, and is closing in on Lou Gehrig's franchise record of 2,721. For a player who's so steeped in Yankees history and obsessed with consistency, it's a mind-blowing achievement.
"Anytime you talk about any of the Yankee greats, it's a big deal," Jeter says. "To pass Lou Gehrig in strikeouts would be a big deal, because your name is on that list. It's kind of hard to believe."
Talk of the clubhouse
Jeter's revival has amazed his teammates, even those who've been around and have a high threshold for amazement. After Jeter began a recent game with a single, Mark Teixeira turned to hitting coach Kevin Long and joked that it might be easier and less time-consuming to just award him first base.
"We've started to tease him," Johnny Damon says. "We'll ask him, 'What record are you going to break today?' This is definitely the best streak I've seen him on since I've been here. If he has three hits, he wants four, and then he wants everyone else to get a hit so he can come up again and get five. I think he smells 3,000 hits. And he smells the postseason run that we could possibly have."
Jeter's revival is attributable in part to good health. He suffered a strained left thigh in April 2008, then got smoked in the hand by a Daniel Cabrera fastball a month later. The first injury did a number on his legs, and the second one put a crimp in his ability to drive the ball.
"People were ready to downgrade him, but I don't think they took into account how much the leg injury bothered him," Yankees broadcaster Ken Singleton says. The defensive metrics show that Jeter is getting to more balls at shortstop, and he has 23 stolen bases compared to only 11 last season, so he's a walking testament to the importance of having a solid base.
Jeter's .330 average is more a tribute to his "back to basics" style of hitting. Fans might remember Cal Ripken Jr. as the quintessential fiddler, a player whose stance and hand positioning were subject to change from game to game and at-bat to at-bat. Jeter, in contrast, is a classic creature of habit.
He begins each plate appearance by planting his right foot firmly in the box. Before the pitcher delivers, Jeter will brush a hand over his mouth, his ear flap and the bill of his helmet, then extend his right arm toward the umpire for an extra moment to collect himself. He holds the bat high, lowers it, then raises it again in a gentle rocking motion, while slightly arching his back.
And finally, when pitchers try to jam him with fastballs, Jeter pulls his hands inside the ball and rains foul pops into the first-base box seats until he finds a pitch he really likes. He'll either line it to right field or get the bat head out and pull it to left.
There was no "Eureka!" moment when a coach told him the secret to success was to "keep your hands inside the ball." But that philosophy has formed the backbone of Jeter's approach since he was a teenager.
"I think if you have that type of swing, you're able to hit a lot more pitches," Jeter says. "Fastballs in, you can hit. Offspeed pitches, you're not really going to pull them foul too much. That's just a philosophy I've always had, and I've never really changed it."
The same goes for the mental approach and preparation that Jeter brings to the batter's box. He has never been one to cloud his thinking with arcane data or an obsession with pitchers' tendencies.
"He's not anal about his mechanics," Long says. "I think that's the neatest thing about him. Some hitters want to know a pitcher's 'out' pitch, or what the guy is going to throw with runners in scoring position. Jeter doesn't want to know that. All he wants to know is their repertoire, and he's looking to hit off the fastball. It's the simplest approach you could have to hitting."
All that weeding-out would be worthless, of course, without natural ability, and Jeter's talents were evident from the beginning. Dick Groch, the former Yankees scout who signed him, was smitten after watching Jeter field grounders, take batting practice and run the 60-yard-dash at an All-Star camp in Mount Morris, Mich., in the summer of 1990.
There was only one red flag: When Groch saw Jeter's wiry frame and that inside-out swing, he figured power pitchers could knock the bat out of the kid's hands. He got his answer on a cold, blustery Michigan day 17 years ago, when Jeter turned on an inside fastball and bombed it to left. The Jeter family house was adjacent to the high school field, and Derek nearly conked it.
"I've been doing this for 40-some years now and I've said it 100 times, 'It's like going to the Kentucky Derby or the county fair,' " Groch says. "When you see the stallion, you see it, and it still takes your breath away."
Groch divides hitters into three categories: Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield and Josh Hamilton are prime examples of "bat speed" guys. Rafael Palmeiro and Ken Griffey Jr. fall into the "balance and body control" category. And Jeter belongs with Pete Rose, George Brett, Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs in the "hand-eye coordination" group.
"He hits the Derek Jeter way," Groch says. "He's no different now than he was at Kalamazoo Central High School."
Memory lane
At times like this, it's natural to take a breath and consider what might have been. In June 1992, Stanford outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds was high on the Yankees' draft board, but he went to Baltimore with the fourth pick in the first round.
As the story goes, Groch and the team brass were in a meeting discussing Jeter's future when scouting director Bill Livesey cited the prevailing sentiment that the kid was bound for the University of Michigan.
"He's not going to Michigan," Groch said. "The only place he's going is to Cooperstown."
Hits2nd (2,713)Stolen bases2nd (298)Runs4th (1,562)Singles1st (1,996)HBP1st (142)At-bats1st (8,565)
Hits2nd (2,713)Stolen bases2nd (298)Runs4th (1,562)Singles1st (1,996)HBP1st (142)At-bats1st (8,565)
A baseball lifetime later, Jeter is a 10-time All-Star and Groch is now a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers. His personal memorabilia collection includes a 1932 Yankees baseball with Babe Ruth's signature in the sweet spot and Gehrig's autograph beneath it. It recently struck Groch that Jeter's name now ranks up there with Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and Yogi Berra on a bunch of franchise top 10 lists.
Jeter has also experienced a few moments of reverie lately. He laughs when recalling how the Yankees listed him at 6-foot-3, 175 pounds when he signed his first pro contract. Jeter's height was embellished from his days as a high school basketball player in Kalamazoo, and the 175-pound figure was pure fiction.
"When I weighed in with the Yankees the first day, I was 154 pounds," Jeter says. "I thought they were going to send me home."
They never did, and now Jeter's "greatest hits" collection includes the Jeremy Giambi lateral, dives into the stands for foul pops by Trot Nixon and Terrence Long, and the Jeffrey Maier home run. He also endured a 32 at-bat hitless streak in 2004, and looked so lost that New York cab drivers and doormen felt the urge to commiserate and offer words of encouragement.
Jeter is so revered in baseball circles, one general manager said he'll be "done" with the game if it ever comes to light that Jeter used performance-enhancing drugs. In a rare flash of emotion, Jeter held court on the topic in spring training. He told reporters that he's never touched a steroid, never will and takes issue with the perception that "everybody's doing it." He wants people to know that everybody isn't doing it.
If the cynics in the blogosphere think baseball writers are infatuated with Jeter, they should hear his peers gush about him.
"When I look at him, I see a guy who's got his act together," Atlanta third baseman Chipper Jones says. "A guy who is a winner, who does everything the right way, and deserves everything that he gets."
Braves manager Bobby Cox is equally effusive.
"There are a couple of guys I really admire -- Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter," Cox says. "I follow Tigers Woods and watch his interviews. I follow Derek and I watch his interviews, and they're both as professional as you would ever want."
A skeptic might see Jeter's guarded approach to public relations and judge him guilty of "brand awareness," but that terminology seems out of place for a 35-year-old man who plays baseball with an exuberance typically reserved for Williamsport. That sense of joy is apparent in Jeter's body language and written all over his face this season.
If 2008 was a drag, 2009 has been a succession of "Turn Back the Clock" days.
"People always say, 'Is the clubhouse looser this year?' " Jeter says. "Of course it is, because we're winning. I'd be lying if I told you this year wasn't fun."
The fun is back, the hits are falling like rain and Lou Gehrig is next in line. There's no telling how long this could last.
