Derek Jeter immortalized as one of baseball’s all-time greats
At precisely 3:48 Wednesday afternoon, the Captain, Derek Jeter — toting a hefty Hall-of-Fame resume that included the sixth-most hits (3,465) in history, the most hits (200), runs (111) and total bases (302) in the postseason, five World Series rings, and bushelful of indelible baseball moments — strode to the podium of the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown to finally accept his plaque as one of the greatest players, and Yankees, the game has ever known.
Earlier, the weather forecast had called for afternoon thundershowers but we all knew there was no way it was going to rain on Jeter’s day, not after having waited a year for this because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, as we also all knew, Jeter was always in the right place at the right time and this was it; baseball’s high holy day of obligation, a place where only 1% of all the players who ever played the game get to be, and the Yankee Captain — who was elected to the Hall with 396 out of 397 votes from the Baseball Writers Association back in January 2020 — basked in the magnitude of the ceremony in front of his family, friends, teammates and hundreds of Yankee fans chanting “Der-ek Jet-er, Der-ek Jet-er” one more time.
Following fellow inductees — switch-hitting former Cardinals and Brewers catcher Ted Simmons, Canadian-born ex-Rockies and Expos slugger Larry Walker (he of the career .313/.400/.565 slash line) and Donald Fehr, representing the late transformative players union chief Marvin Miller — Jeter began by the thanking the Baseball Writers, “all but one of you who voted for me,” and then spoke of two impactful meetings in his life. When he sat next to Jackie Robinson’s widow, Rachel, at the New York Baseball Writers dinner in 1996 and during the ceremonies at Fenway Park in Boston for the All-Century team when Hank Aaron tapped him on the shoulder and introduced himself to him in 1999. Those two occasions, he said, made him realize that baseball was more than just a game and he would quietly dedicate his play to them: “During my career, I wanted their approval. I wanted to make them proud.”
Seated in the front row right below him were his family, his father Charles, his mother Dorothy, his sister Charlee, his grandmother, his wife Hannah and his two young daughters. Behind them were his former Yankee teammates, Jorge Posada, Tino Martinez, Gerald Williams and his fellow iconic pal Michael Jordan. Seated further back were Hal Steinbrenner and club COO Lonn Trost representing the Yankees. And, of course, seated among the 34 returning Hall-of-Famers behind him were Mariano Rivera, Reggie Jackson and Joe Torre. “I thank you Mr. T, for trusting me [as a rookie in 1996] or at least making me think you trusted me,” Jeter said.
He talked about spending the summers with his grandparents in Milford, N.J. “where I fell in love with the Yankees” and learning the game practicing in the back yard with his father (“my first idol”), his mom (”who taught me never to accept the word ‘can’t’”) and his sister. He was forever grateful to The Boss, George Steinbrenner, for constantly challenging him (“he’d publicly embarrass you, but he did it to bring out the best in you”). And there was a shout-out to Dick Groch, the scout who convinced the Yankees (who were worried he was going to accept a scholarship to the U. of Michigan) to take the skinny shortstop from Kalamazoo with the No. 6 pick in the 1992 draft. (“He’s not going to Michigan,” Groch assuredly told them, “he’s going to Cooperstown.”)
And now he was there, some 2,747 games later, the most of any Yankee in history, and packed in them had been so many of those “right guy at the right place” moments: The home run for his 3,000th hit July 9, 2011, the first-pitch leadoff home run against the Mets in the fourth of game of the 2000 World Series, the “Flip Play” against the A’s that turned around the 2001 ALCS, the “Mr. November” 10th-inning walk-off home run against the Diamondbacks as the clock struck midnight at Yankee Stadium in the fourth game of the 2001 World Series, the head-first diving catch into the stands against the Red Sox July 1, 2004, and lastly the walk-off RBI single against the Orioles in his final game at Yankee Stadium in 2014.
But not surprisingly, on this day, Jeter made no mention of any of those things. For as he always maintained, it was never about him and always about team and winning.
“My goal,” Jeter said, “was always to win more than anyone else.
“And we did. It’s been a helluva ride.”
And with that, the ceremony was over, just as the first drops of rain began falling from the darkened skies, a tad too late to curtail the best of all of Derek Jeter’s moments.
