Derek Jeter: Excellence and Elegance
128
Derek Jeter: Excellence and Elegance
128eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633192270 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 91 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
The New York Times is regarded as the world's preeminent newspaper. Winner of 112 Pulitzer Prizes, it has the largest circulation of any seven-day newspaper in the country. Previous books include Derek Jeter: From the Pages of the New York Times. Tyler Kepner is the award-winning national baseball correspondent for the New York Times. Previously, he had covered the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. He lives in Wilton, Connecticut. Joe Torre won four World Series as manager of the New York Yankees. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.
Read an Excerpt
Derek Jeter
Excellence and Elegance
By Tyler Kepner
Triumph Books
Copyright © 2014 The New York TimesAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63319-227-0
CHAPTER 1
Future Yankee Too Good to Be True?
By Jack Curry
Published: August 26, 1994
Uncle Joe has skin cancer and it has spread. It is serious. Those were the only words Derek Jeter needed to hear from Aunt Julie before he used his first scheduled day off in six weeks to transform himself from a star shortstop in Columbus, Ohio, to a concerned nephew in Kearny, N.J.
Aunt Julie gave Derek a gold New York Yankees necklace when he was in the sixth grade and the gift helped form a strong bond between them. Necklace or not, Jeter did not need to be cajoled into spending Tuesday with Uncle Joe.
It was typical of Jeter, the Class AAA prospect who could be the starting shortstop for the Yankees next season if his fielding is deemed reliable. Finding fault with Jeter the player or the person is as arduous as finding interest in buying tickets for a Yankee game tonight.
"Joe had seen stories about Derek in the New York papers and said, 'I guess I'm not going to make it to see him play in Yankee Stadium,'" explained Dorothy Jeter, Derek's mother, her voice wavering during a telephone interview yesterday. "He said, 'I guess I won't ever get to see him.' So Julie told him, 'I'll bring him here.'"
She succeeded. After returning to Columbus that night, the 20-year-old Jeter called his mother in Kalamazoo, Mich.
"He said Joe didn't look good and it bothered him," Mrs. Jeter said. "I knew it would because he's never seen anybody sick. He said Uncle Joe was glad to see him. If Derek made him smile for 10 minutes, it was worth it."
If Jeter were an average college student who used a rare day off to journey three hours round trip to see an ill uncle, it would be a sweet story. But since Jeter is a former first-round draft pick who has catapulted from Class A to Class AAA in two months, who is being touted as a future All-Star and who has not changed from the pleasant kid who received that necklace eight years ago, it might be an even sweeter story.
"He's more than just a baseball player," Mrs. Jeter proclaimed. "He's Derek."
While that sounds like a boastful mother on her best day, it is not boasting when she is accurate. Manager Buck Showalter of the Yankees studied Jeter for five games last week. He analyzed Jeter in the dugout and the clubhouse and watched how he interacted with teammates on a club that has two shortstops with big league experience.
The manager liked what he observed. "Those are things I want to see," he said, lauding Jeter's quickness and fearlessness. "Those are things you can't get in a report."
Stump Merrill has managed Jeter for 25 games at Columbus, where the 6-foot-3-inch, 180-pounder, who wiggles his bat and has the hip-hop swagger of the basketball player he used to be, has batted .314 with 2 homers, 13 runs batted in, 7 steals and 5 errors.
When asked what has most impressed him, Merrill said, "Everything."
When asked what he needs to improve upon, Jeter replied, "Everything."
Although he declined to handicap Jeter's chances of reaching the Yankees next season, General Manager Gene Michael, a former shortstop, said: "He's the real thing. I liked what I saw of him. He's getting there."
Jeter does not believe the hype or at least he does not let himself believe it. He hit .329 in 69 games at Class A Fort Lauderdale, then was bumped to Class AA Albany, where he hit .377 in 34 games.
And Jeter is blossoming just when two Yankee shortstops — Mike Gallego and Randy Velarde — can become free agents.
"I don't know what's going to happen," said Jeter. "They're going to do what they want to do. But I always knew the Yankees don't move people too quickly, so I was a little surprised when I came here."
And Jeter will not help anyone figure it out. He is polite and hesitant to say anything inflammatory, and his upbringing is right out of a Showalter playbook. Jeter's father, Charles, a drug and alcohol counselor, and his mother, an accountant, have lectured him about not being self-centered and they gave him daily advice when reporters trekked to Columbus last week and focused on him.
"We want to make sure if he's talking to reporters that he's minding his P's and Q's," said Mrs. Jeter.
"He might fit right into our clubhouse," said Showalter.
Open the clubhouse door. Here is a sampling of Jeter's remarks:
"I don't like hearing people who only talk about themselves."
"I think defense should always come first."
"I try not to pay attention to the newspapers."
Obviously, Jeter will be judged on his play, not his plays on words, and his glove will determine whether he is Showalter's shortstop in 1995. If Showalter is comfortable with Jeter's defense, where his shortcomings have been a tendency to throw every ball to first at warp speed and to botch the routine play, he could appear in the Bronx. Just as Uncle Joe speculated.
It's No Contest as Jeter Captures Rookie of the Year
By Jack Curry
Published: November 5, 1996
Derek Jeter was supposed to be the question mark on the Yankees this season, even according to Manager Joe Torre. Could the rookie handle playing shortstop? Could he succeed in New York? What would happen to the Yankees if the youngster floundered?
Imagine how ludicrous those concerns seem now.
Jeter's stylish play forced those questions to vanish faster than World Series tickets. The only question Jeter had to answer yesterday was where he planned to display his newest trophy, the American League rookie of the year award he won in a landslide.
The 22-year-old Jeter garnered all 28 first-place votes in becoming the fifth American Leaguer since the award's inception 50 years ago to be a unanimous choice for the honor.
No one was surprised. Not even the normally humble Jeter.
After Jeter homered off Cleveland's Dennis Martinez and made a nifty over-the-shoulder catch in the Yankees' season opener, he immediately became a strong candidate for the award. When the glorious season progressed and Jeter became a special and instrumental part of the Yankees' magical ride, it became more obvious that he would be named the premier rookie.
"I'm still dreaming," Jeter said yesterday. "The way New York has embraced us after the championship, I can't put it into words. This is still a dream. I hope we can do it a few more years."
Jeter was the first Yankee to win the award since Dave Righetti in 1981, the second-youngest Yankee to be voted the award after Tony Kubek (21 years old in 1957) and the eighth Yankee over all. He easily outdistanced the Chicago White Sox right-hander James Baldwin.
California's Tim Salmon was the last rookie to win unanimously in the American League, in 1993.
"Unanimous?" joked Jeter. "I must have had some of my family voting in it."
Not really. With 5 points for a first-place vote, 3 for second and 1 for third in the voting by two news media members from each American League city, Jeter secured 140 points. Baldwin notched 64 points on 19 seconds and 7 thirds, Detroit's Tony Clark had 30 and Baltimore's Rocky Coppinger and Kansas City's Jose Rosado tied for fourth with 6 points.
It was another wondrous day for Jeter, who hugged his father, Charles, during a news conference at Yankee Stadium and thanked "Mr. Steinbrenner" and "Mr. Torre" for having patience with him. Jeter even suggested that the Yankees could have demoted him to the minor leagues after he had an uneventful spring, but that was never a consideration. The Yankees wanted him to learn on the job and he did. Quickly and emphatically.
"We had a lot of guys who were valuable," said Torre. "I don't think we had one guy, player-wise, who was more valuable than him."
Torre said last February that he hoped Jeter would bat .250 and play dependable defense. The rookie exceeded those goals by hitting .314 — the highest among the 10 shortstops voted rookies of the year — with 10 homers, 78 runs batted in, 104 runs scored and 22 errors in 157 games.
He evolved into perhaps the Yankees' premier player following the All-Star Game break, batting .350 with 6 homers and 40 r.b.i. to finish the regular season with a flourish, clinch the rookie award and secure a $10,000 contractual bonus.
"His hitting blew me out of the tub," said Torre, a former National League batting champion. "I never expected anything like that. I said something about him hitting .250. Someone told me he'd hit more than .250. I said fine."
Though the rookie voting is completed when the regular season ends, Jeter was even more impressive in the pressure-packed October as veterans like Wade Boggs, Paul O'Neill and Tino Martinez struggled for the Yankees. Jeter had a .361 average in the postseason — including one unforgettable homer against Baltimore that was helped by an overzealous 12-year-old — with 3 r.b.i. and 12 runs scored. Jeter combined with Bernie Williams as twin Mr. Octobers and helped usher the Yankees to their first World Series title since 1978, never looking like a player who would be a college senior right now.
"It's tremendous," said Charles Jeter. "Derek is doing what he wants to do. I'm most proud of the way he carries himself beyond the baseball end. As a parent, I'm proud of the way he handled himself."
When Jeter was asked what would inspire him in 1997 after a grandiose debut, he responded: "To come back. It was incredible. The parade. How the city took to us. I want to be back year after year. There's nothing else I'd rather do than win some more."
Winning With a Boy's Help, Yankees Make No Apologies
By Jack Curry
Published: October 10, 1996
One overzealous 12-year-old helped the Yankees rejoice on a day when all of their runs except Bernie Williams's game-winning homer were somewhat tainted. Still, after beating the Baltimore Orioles, 5-4, in 11 innings yesterday, the Yankees refused to apologize.
They won their first American League Championship Series game in 15 years, and did it with an assist from 12-year old Jeff Maier, a New Jersey boy with a keen eye and a quick glove. The young fan lived out every kid's dream, bringing his mitt to Yankee Stadium and getting a chance to use it. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Maier reached over the wall in right field to scoop a ball hit by New York's Derek Jeter away from Baltimore's right fielder and into the stands.
The Orioles screamed for interference, but it was ruled a home run. Although the umpire later second-guessed his call, the home run stood, the Yankees had tied the score at 4-4 and were on their way to a dramatic Game 1 victory.
Jeter wants to meet the boy to thank him and "Good Morning America" telephoned his house in Old Tappan, N.J., minutes after the game to try to schedule him on the show. The Orioles, who were rightfully perturbed, saw the incident as another indignity at the hands of a team that has now beaten them 11 out of 14 times this year.
Who could blame the Orioles? Leading off the bottom of the 11th, Williams rocked Randy Myers's 1-1 slider deep into the left-field seats. It was his fourth home run this October, and it vaulted the Yankees to their fourth straight come-from-behind triumph in the postseason. The Yankees were delirious, and Jeff Maier was delighted.
"It's unbelievable," Jeff said. "It's pretty cool."
Darryl Strawberry soaked in the evening's strange events, the start of what is expected to be a riveting series, and mused, "They'll be talking about this one for a long time."
"Do I feel bad?" asked Jeter. "We won the game. Why should I feel bad? Ask them that."
Yanks Sweep Series and Assure Legacy
By Buster Olney
Published: October 22, 1998
SAN DIEGO, Oct. 21 — The Yankees have been a team greater than the sum of its parts all year, and when they secured their own corridor in history tonight, it was appropriate that a pitcher who had struggled in recent weeks pushed them over the finish line.
Andy Pettitte, dropped to the back of the Yankees' rotation for the World Series, applied the final piece to their mosaic tonight, pitching seven and a third shutout innings and outdueling Kevin Brown in a 3-0 victory over the San Diego Padres in Game 4. In achieving their first Series sweep since 1950 and seventh in their history, the Yankees wrapped up their 24th championship and the second in the last three years.
The Yankees set an American League record with 114 victories in the regular season, then eliminated Texas, three games to none, Cleveland, 4-2, and San Diego, 4-0. The Yankees finished the year with 125 victories and 50 losses in the regular season and postseason combined, shattering the previous record of 118. Their winning percentage of .714 is the third best in history for World Series winners, behind the 1927 Yankees (.722) and the 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates (.717).
Grandfather Led Jeter To Value Hard Work
By Jack Curry
Published: February 24, 1999
He took care of the same church, high school and elementary school for 36 years, fixing the electrical wiring, repairing faulty pipes and vacuuming the rugs around the altar. He was a blue-collar worker, never taking a day off. He rarely sneaked away to see Derek Jeter, his grandson, play for the Yankees in person. Not when he had to wake up at 4:30 A.M. the next day.
His name was William Connors, though everyone knew him as Sonny, and he was as much of a fixture at Queen of Peace Church in North Arlington, N.J., as the pews. If priests needed light bulbs for the sacristy, they called Sonny. If nuns needed someone to paint their living room, they called Sonny. He worked diligently as the head of maintenance, a routine that his grandson observed as a boy and emulated as a man.
"He never missed work, if he was sick or he had a bad day," Jeter said. "He always seemed to go and work every day. I think that's something I learned from him."
In answering questions about his dream life as the shortstop who will make $5 million this season for a team that has snatched two World Series championships in the last three years, Jeter admitted that he has distressing days, too. One of them occurred on New Year's Day when Sonny Connors died of a heart attack at 68. Many lose elderly relatives, but Jeter's memories vividly showed that even someone with a charmed existence has awful days.
"He touched a lot of people's lives," Jeter said. "He wasn't making millions of dollars, but he had just as much of an effect on someone's life as any one of us in here."
More than 800 people attended Connors's funeral, and the high school and elementary school were both closed as a tribute to him. The people who flocked to the funeral were the same people who had relied on Sonny to give their car a jump start, who sat near him at Mass after he opened the church at 6:30, who knew him from St. Michael's Church in Jersey City, where he also handled maintenance for more than 14 years, and who saved articles for him about his famous grandson.
"He used to joke that Derek was going to make more money in one year than he made in a lifetime," said Msgr. Thomas Madden, the pastor at Queen of Peace. "He said he should have spent more time playing ball as a kid. But he was so proud of Derek. The only thing he used to pray for was that Derek wouldn't get hurt." Jeter, who was a pallbearer at the funeral, gazed at the hundreds of mourners and realized that his special grandfather was special to a legion of admirers.
"People say you know who your friends were at your funeral," Jeter said. "Have you ever heard that expression? A lot of people showed up. A lot of people showed they cared, and a lot of people showed that he affected their lives in some way."
When Jeter was 10, his grandfather took him to work and showed him how to mow the football field. Jeter recalled that the grass was almost a foot high and he had a mower with a bag, so he had to stop dozens of times and empty it. Once Jeter finished the job hours later, Connors told him to start over because the grass had grown back.
"I never worked with him again," said Jeter, a smile creasing his face.
Sharlee Jeter, Derek's younger sister, referred to her grandfather's work ethic in a eulogy, saying: "He was a very strict boss. That's why Derek has no problems playing for George Steinbrenner."
Everyone inside the church laughed at the remark. It was another tribute to a man who spent half a century tending to two churches, a man who was a loving father to 14 and a man who taught his baseball-playing grandson about the pleasures of working hard.
"He was a wonderful person," the monsignor said. "It will be a long time before we see the likes of Sonny again. I've seen the way Derek carries himself, and in the long run, hopefully, he'll be the man his grandfather was. If he is, he'll really be accomplishing something in his life."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Derek Jeter by Tyler Kepner. Copyright © 2014 The New York Times. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Joe Torre,Introduction,
Future Yankee Too Good to Be True?,
It's No Contest as Jeter Captures Rookie of the Year,
Winning With a Boy's Help, Yankees Make No Apologies,
Yanks Sweep Series and Assure Legacy,
Grandfather Led Jeter To Value Hard Work,
Derek Jeter: The Pride of Kalamazoo,
Crucial Errors of Omission Also Haunt the Braves,
Jeter Offers Leadership Along With His Talent,
Jeter, the M.V.P., Says This Title Is Most Gratifying,
Jeter Shares the Success Of Sister's Winning Fight,
Add Catch To Jeter's Catalog Of Heroics,
Steinbrenner Appoints Jeter Captain of the Yankees,
On a Rainy Night, Jeter Lets the Sun Shine In,
Jeter Is Center of Attention, Especially in October,
Yanks Assure Jeter He's Safe At Shortstop,
Jeter Gives Another Clinic in Leadership,
If It's October, It Must Be Jeter Time,
Jeter Beats Out a Milestone,
With Five-Hit Performance, Jeter Gains Entry Into an Elite Club,
Jeter Sees Sunshine Amid Clouds,
In Beginning, Even Jeter Doubted Jeter,
Jeter Thanks Fans in Speech After Game,
Jeter Passes Gehrig as Yankees Hits Leader,
Back on Top, Yankees Add a 27th Title,
Jeter Reaches Fabled 3,000, and It's a Blast,
Gray Pinstripes: With Jeter Out, Time's Toll Rises,
Jeter's Retirement Announcement Hits the Right Note,
The Book on Jeter,
Jeter Savoring His Last Season but Not Letting It Distract Him,
With 2,583 Games at One Position, Derek Jeter Reaches Another Milestone,
M.L.B. All-Star Game 2014: Derek Jeter Nabs 2 Hits in A.L. Victory,
Celebrating Glory, With Little Hope to Add to It,
Derek Jeter Plays Final Game at Fenway Park,