The average 38-year old Major League Baseball player is usually showing
signs that the game has passed him by. Somebody forgot to mention this
to New York Yankees All-Star shortstop Derek Jeter. Entering play on
Saturday, Jeter is leading The American League in hits with 97 while
posting a .303 batting average. Jeter recently passed Hall of Famers
George Brett and Cal Ripken on MLB’s all-time hits list as he now stands
alone in 14th place with 3,185 career hits. Jeter is steadily closing
in on Nap Lajoie who has 3,242 career hits. Jeter is a lock to make his
13th consecutive All-Star Game appearance next month in Kansas City and
when his career is over he can do “the tootsie roll” into The Baseball
Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
This isn’t bad for a man that was given the dry shave following the 2010
season when Jeter became a free agent for the first time in his
illustrious career. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman was following
the orders of Yankee owners Hank and Hal Steinbrenner to play hardball
with Jeter’s agent Casey Close in negotiations. After a battle that was
drawn out publicly, the two sides agreed on a three-year, $51 million
contract with an option for a fourth year to keep Jeter in pinstripes.
What has made Jeter so successful on the baseball diamond has been his
cool and calm demeanor. Jeter has always walked with a big stick. When
the chips are on the table Jeter has always come up big as he has helped
The Bronx Bombers win five World Series Championships on his watch.
This was evident in The 2000 World Series against The New York Mets.
With The Yankees up two games to one and The Mets looking to seize the
momentum of the series, Jeter led off game four with a home run. Jeter
would go on to become The Most Valuable Player of The 2000 World Series
as The Yankees won in five games. He also became the only player in MLB
history to be The MVP of The World Series and The All-Star Game in the
same season.
Jeter has also been one of the consistently good players of this era. In
his 18-year career, Jeter has accumulated over 200 hits on seven
occasions while he has a good chance of reaching the milestone an eighth
time this year. Jeter is also was respected man in The Yankee
clubhouse. In 2003, Jeter became the first Yankee captain since Don
Mattingly in 1995. Jeter is also the trademark of supreme conditioning
as he is The Yankees all-time leader in games played at 2,500.
If Jeter can keep his hits pace up for three more seasons, he is on pace
to go over 3,700 hits for his career. If Jeter were to accomplish this
he would pass Hall of Famers such as Carl Yastrzemski, Honus Wagner, and
Stan Musial. When you think of great modern era shortstops such as
Ripken, Ozzie Smith, and Ernie Banks, Jeter is a combination of all
three. Jeter is a five-time Gold Glove Award winner that has shown the
defensive skills of Smith during his career. With 2,500 games played
Jeter has shown the durability of Ripken who is baseball’s ironman.
Jeter won’t hit over 500 home runs like Banks did, but he knows how to
get the clutch home run. When you put all of this together we might be
looking at the greatest shortstop that the game has ever seen.
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