Core Four: The Heart and Soul of the Yankees Dynasty

by Phil Pepe

  Michael Young: “I respect Mo more than anybody in the game. The guy goes out there and gets three outs and shakes Posada’s hand. You appreciate someone who respects the game like he does, respects the people he plays with and against, and obviously his results speak for themselves.”

  Joe Girardi: “He’s sneaky. Because he’s small, and because his delivery is so free and easy, so smooth, his stuff doesn’t look as if it’s coming at you as fast as it is. Then it’s by you.”

  Mark Teixeira: “I have always argued that he is the best pitcher of all time, not a reliever, the best pitcher of all time.”

  Joe Nathan, Texas Rangers closer: “I look up to how he’s handled himself on and off the field. You never see him show up anyone and he respects the game. I’ve always looked up to him and it’s always a compliment to be just mentioned in the same sentence as him.”

  Derek Jeter: “He’s the best. I don’t care how many saves [other closers] have. I think you have to put him at the top of the list. [He is] a once-in-a-lifetime player [and] the most mentally tough [teammate he’s ever played with].”

  Mariano Rivera: “I get the ball, I throw the ball, and then I take a shower.”

  24. Hit Man

  Once he passed Lou Gehrig for the most hits by a Yankee at 2,722, the countdown was on for Derek Jeter to reach the magic milestone number of 3,000, which had been achieved by only 27 players in baseball history.

  While becoming the Yankees’ all-time hits leader, Jeter’s season average of .334 and his total of 212 hits were his highest in three years. It also was seen by many as the calm before the storm.

  In 2010, Jeter’s average would plummet by 64 points to .270, the lowest of his career if you don’t include his .250 average when he was brought up for 15 games at the end of the 1995 season. Despite playing in 157 games, the third most of his career, he had only 179 hits, his fewest in seven years, and a career low (again, not including his cameo appearance in 1995) 10 home runs.

  Some said his batting decline was caused by the stress of the chase for 3,000 hits. Others saw a more practical explanation: his age! On June 26 he had turned 36 years old, an age when most players are well into their physical and statistical descent— especially shortstops, the only defensive position Jeter has ever played. (Of the 2,295 games in which he had appeared, 2,276 were at shortstop; the other 19 were as a designated hitter.)

  His critics attacked not only his hitting, but his fielding. He had lost a few steps, they charged. He no longer was the offensive force who had earned four Silver Slugger Awards (presented to the outstanding hitter at each position), or the lithe and agile shortstop who had earned four Gold Gloves (he would win his fifth that season). Move him down in the batting order, they urged. Find another defensive position for him, they implored.

  Jeter heard all the comments about his age. He knew about the remarks from radio talk show hosts and their callers, and read the stories by baseball writers that he had lost a step, or two, or three, in the field, and of his diminished power at bat. Even if he hadn’t heard the comments, or listened to the radio, or read the papers, he would have been reminded by reports, in the midst of negotiations between Jeter and the Yankees on a new contract, that some members of the team’s hierarchy were questioning whether Jeter’s skills were eroding and suggested he might be best served if he explored free agency. Those negotiations got ugly at times, but fearing a public backlash should they allow the popular team captain to walk, the Yankees eventually grudgingly caved in and signed Jeter to a three-year $51 million extension. With his new contract that would take him through the 2013 season, Jeter set about putting the scurrilous stories of his demise to rest.

  Despite his determination, Jeter got the 2011 season off to an alarmingly slow start. On April 20, although he had passed Al Simmons, Rogers Hornsby, “Wee” Willie Keeler, Jake Beckley, and Barry Bonds on the hit ladder on his way to 3,000, he was batting a paltry .219, giving credence to the widely held belief that the captain of the Yankees, like an old soldier, was fading.

  Still, the pursuit of 3,000 continued. On April 24, he passed Frank Robinson. On May 10, he passed “Wahoo” Sam Crawford. On June 7, he passed Sam Rice.

  By June 13, he had raised his average to a respectable if un-Jeter-like .260 and was 28th on baseball’s all-time hits list with 2,994, just six away from the promised land, when he suffered a calf injury that would delay his 3,000-hit coronation and land him on the disabled list for the first time in eight years.

  While the recovery and rehab in Tampa was a drag for Jeter, who hated being sidelined and throughout his career was known for playing hurt, it also may have been a blessing in disguise. It gave him an opportunity to get together with hitting instructor Gary Denbo, Jeter’s first professional manager. The two worked diligently for hours each day attempting to replicate and recapture the batting style that made Jeter so successful. The layoff also allowed him to clear his head, escape the pressure of the chase for 3,000, and return to the Yankees rested and refreshed.

  It was a different Derek Jeter—or rather, it was the old, pre-2010 Derek Jeter—who rejoined the Yankees in Cleveland on July 4. Needing to shake the rust of a month-long layoff, he was hitless in four at-bats in his first game back, but the next day he had two hits and another one the day after that, leaving him three hits short of 3,000, with a good chance he would reach the milestone at Yankee Stadium during a four-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays. Perfect!

  The four games against Tampa Bay would be Jeter’s last chance to reach the 3,000-hit mark in front of the home fans. After that series, the Yanks were scheduled to play eight games on the road, four in Toronto and four at Tampa Bay.

  Hit No. 2,998 for Jeter came in the first game of the series against Tampa Bay on Thursday night, July 7, a line-drive double into the left-center-field gap leading off the bottom of the first inning on the first pitch from 6'9" right-hander Jeff Neimann. Jeter would bat four more times in the game but failed to get another hit.

  It rained in New York on Friday, July 8, a torrential downpour causing the game between the Yankees and Rays to be postponed. Fearing that a reduction of the Tampa Bay series from four games to three because of the postponement would damage Jeter’s chances of getting his 3,000th hit at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees asked the Rays for permission to play a day-night doubleheader the next day. The Rays refused, which was their right according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement between Major League Baseball owners and players.

  Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said he thought Jeter wasn’t going to need the fourth game to reach the milestone.

  “He looks very spiffy to me right now,” Maddon said. “Well-rested after his injury. I can see the eagerness. He looks good. I think he looks really good. So there’s probably a pretty good shot it’s going to happen within the next few days.”

  Color Joe Maddon clairvoyant!

  Saturday afternoon, July 9, came up sun-splashed, hot, and humid in the Bronx. In Yankee Stadium there was an air of excitement and the buzz of anticipation as the Yankees prepared to take on the Tampa Bay Rays. Leading off the bottom of the first, Derek Jeter, still hitting just .257, worked the count to 3–2 against the Rays’ ace, left-hander David Price, and then hit a ground ball through the left side. Hit No. 2,999.

  That hit, Jeter said, helped him to relax. “It was huge,” he said. “He could have thrown it in the dugout and I would have swung. I was not trying to walk.”

  Jeter came to bat again in the third inning. The Rays had scored a run in the second to take a 1–0 lead. Brett Gardner started the bottom of the third by grounding out to second base. Again Jeter worked the count to 3–2. Price, whose fastball has been clocked occasionally at 100 miles per hour, figured Jeter would be sitting on his fastball. He threw a curveball; Jeter swung. His bat hitting the ball made a resounding crack that reverberated throughout the cavernous stadium and the ball soared high and far to left fie
ld before disappearing into the seats.

  Derek Jeter, who had hit only two home runs up to that game, who hadn’t hit a home run in 100 at-bats, had entered the 3,000-hit club, put his shoulder to the door of that exclusive chamber and pushed his way in with a home run.

  The Yankee Stadium clock read 2:00.

  The game was tied 1–1.

  The fans, 48,103 strong, chanted “DER-ek JEE-ter…DER-ek JEE-ter!”

  Jorge Posada, his best friend on the team, led the charge of Yankees from the dugout to mob their captain, the conquering hero, and smother him with hugs and pats on the back.

  The charge to the plate, said Posada, was spontaneous. “Everybody ran out there and gave him a big hug. I told him I was proud of him. I got a little emotional because I was so happy for him.”

  Members of the rival Tampa Bay Rays, led by Jeter’s former teammate, Johnny Damon, applauded the newest member of the 3,000-hit club and tipped their caps.

  The game was delayed for four minutes as the crowd went wild and Jeter acknowledged the cheers by taking a curtain call and raising his fists.

  Derek Jeter had become the 28th member of baseball’s 3,000-hit club, and the first to join since Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros in 2007.

  He was the 11th member to get all 3,000 hits with the same team.

  He was the first Yankee to be admitted to that club.

  He was the first to get his 3,000th hit in Yankee Stadium, new or old.

  He joined Wade Boggs as the only members to hit a home run for No. 3,000.

  At 37 years, 13 days old, he was the fourth-youngest player to reach 3,000 hits, behind Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, and Robin Yount.

  Hit No. 3,000 came in Jeter’s 2,362nd game, which was the seventh fastest in baseball history, and in his 9,604th at-bat, which was 10th fastest in baseball history.

  Getting 3,000 hits “means a lot,” said Jeter. “It’s a number that has meant a lot in the history of the game because not too many people have done it before. To be the only Yankee to do it…to be the only Yankee to do anything…is pretty special.”

  Jeter called the events of the afternoon “one of those special days” and confessed to fibbing in the days leading up to this climactic event.

  “I’ve been lying for a long time saying I wasn’t nervous and there was no pressure,” he said. “I felt a lot of pressure to do it here while we’re at home. You try not to think about it, but who are we kidding? Everywhere I went, somebody wanted to talk about it.”

  Said David Price: “I didn’t really care if he got it off me, as long as he didn’t drive in a run or score a run, and he did all those things in that one at-bat. Good for him.”

  Jeter had reached his primary goal, but he wasn’t finished for the day. There still was work to be done, a game to play, a game to win, and, with the Yankees starting the day a game behind the first place Red Sox, an important game at that.

  In the fifth inning, with the Rays leading 3–2, Jeter led off by hitting Price’s first pitch for a double down the left-field line—hit No. 3,001!—that jump-started a two-run rally to put the Yankees ahead 4–3.

  In the sixth, with two out and a runner on first, he hit took a 1–0 pitch from reliever Brandon Gomes, and with his familiar, patented inside-out swing, lined a single to right field for hit No. 3,002.

  And in the eighth, with the score tied 4–4 and Joel Peralta on the mound for Tampa Bay, Eduardo Nunez led off with a double, Brett Gardner sacrificed him to third, and Jeter singled to center for his fifth hit of the game, the 3,003rd hit of his career, joining Craig Biggio as the only players to have five hits in a game on the day they reached the 3,000-hit plateau, and driving Nunez in for what would be the winning run.

  A perfect ending to a perfect day!

  Mariano Rivera said the only thing that surprised him about the day was that Jeter didn’t hit a triple to go along with his single, double, and home run to complete the cycle.

  “The best thing for him is how he prepares himself day in and day out,” said Rivera. “He has done it for years. I am happy for him. He deserves it. And I hope he has another thousand or two [hits] more.”

  “I don’t think you can script it any better,” said manager Joe Girardi. “It’s movie-ready to get your 3,000th hit on a home run that ties the game and then to get 3,003 [on] a game-winner. I think we were all like, ‘Wow, he really knows how to do it.’”

  Still to come were the obligatory accolades from Jeter’s peers, his employer and of course, from politicians.

  Hall of Famer and Jeter’s former Yankees teammate, Wade Boggs, welcomed Derek to the 3,000-hit club, “where he can stake his flag in the mountain and call it his own. Reaching the 3,000-hit mark is another piece of the legacy that Derek has created.”

  Yankees idol and Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, who finished his career with 2,150 hits: “I want to give him a big hug. It’s an absolutely wonderful accomplishment.”

  Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ managing general partner, praised Jeter’s “relentless team-first attitude.”

  New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg: “New York has a greater baseball tradition than any other city, but we’ve never had a player get all 3,000 hits in a New York uniform until today. Congratulations, Derek. You’ve made all of New York City proud.”

  25. Jeter

  He has been in our midst, a constant presence, for two decades, his being popping up all over the television seemingly doing one commercial endorsement after another, his countenance, a favorite among the paparazzi, splashed all over the pages of your favorite newspaper and fan magazine, his name endlessly forcing its way into the nation’s gossip columns.

  But what do we really know about Derek Jeter, other than what we read on the back of his bubble-gum card?

  What we know for certain is that he was born in hard-to- pronounce, harder-to-spell Pequannock, New Jersey, a township in eastern Morris County some 20 miles west of the Bronx, New York, with a population of 15,540 in the 2010 census, and that he was raised in (“A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I got a gal in…”) Kalamazoo, Michigan.

  What else do we know?

  We know that his mother, Dorothy, is German/Irish Catholic, and his father, Charles, is African American, the son of a single mother from Alabama.

  We know that his mother and father met in Germany when they were both serving in the Army and that they nurtured Derek and his younger sister, Sharlee, with equal parts of love and discipline, imbuing them with certain values, that when their kids were little Dorothy and Charles required them to sign a commitment every August that outlined a code of behavior and comportment—study hours, curfew times, expected grades, respect for others, and no drugs or alcohol.

  We know that he would like to one day be married and have children of his own (we know that because he says so, but he appears no closer now to reaching either goal than he was in 1996 when he broke in as a rookie), and we know (at least we read in the columns) that he has dated some of the most famous and most drop-dead gorgeous women in the world, a pin-up calendar–full that includes divas Mariah Carey and Joy Enriquez, Miss Universe Lara Dutta, television personality Vanessa Minillo, and actresses Jordana Brewster, Jessica Biel, and Minka Kelly.

  We have seen his commercials, endorsing a wide range of products, from Ford cars and trucks to Nike, Gatorade, Fleet Bank, VISA, Discover Card, Florsheim shoes, Gillette, and Skippy peanut butter.

  We are told that in 2006 he was the second-highest-paid endorser in baseball (only Ichiro Suzuki, who had the entire country of Japan in the palm of his hand, was higher), that he was ranked as the most marketable player in baseball according to the 2003, 2005, and 2010 Sports Business Surveys, and that in 2011 Nielsen ranked Jeter as the most marketable player in baseball because of his “sincerity, approachability, experience, and influence.”

  We have watched him play the game—even at what is normall
y considered an advanced age for a baseball player—with a little leaguer’s mirth and joy, running full-out on every ground ball and every fly ball, mindless of the score, the inning, the opponent, or the importance of the game.

  We know that he has created the Turn 2 Foundation, a charitable organization established to help children and teenagers avoid drug and alcohol addiction and to reward those with high academic achievement, and which since its inception has awarded more than $16 million in grants to youth programs in western Michigan, New York, and the Tampa Bay area.

  But do we really know Derek Jeter? Does anyone?

  Do we know what kind of books he likes to read (if he even reads books, that is)?

  Do we know what kind of music he listens to? What kind of movies he likes? Who his favorite movies stars are (those he does not date, that is)? Which plays he has enjoyed? We have never seen a photo of him backstage at a Broadway performance, rarely even heard he has attended an opera, a concert, or a Broadway play.

  Do we know what his politics are? Does he even follow politics?

  Who does he vote for? Does he even vote? We never have seen a photo of him about to enter, or just emerging from, a polling booth.

  What church does he attend? We don’t even know if he attends church, although it is said he practices his mother’s religion and there have been times he has been glimpsed making the sign of the cross as he steps into the batter’s box.

  Derek Jeter has been portrayed as the perfect son, the perfect friend, the perfect teammate, the perfect opponent, the perfect Yankee, the perfect representative of his trade, the “face of baseball,” in the words of Commissioner Bud Selig. And no one has challenged those portrayals. In an era of rampant drug use and intense media scrutiny of professional athletes, Jeter has remained untouched by suspicion and free of scandal. He is a private person diligent in his effort to guard and protect his image. At a time when even the slightest slip is detected, Derek Jeter always says the right thing and always does the right thing. Except once.