The Yankees have won 27 championships with a diverse collection of baseball’s greatest players. From the groundbreaking power of Babe Ruth to the unmatched hitting streak of Joe DiMaggio to a trio of perfect-game pitchers, the Yankees’ starry constellation outshines all others.
But one thing the Yankees never had, until now, was a player with 3,000 hits. A few have passed through on their way to the milestone, but only one has collected 3,000 as a Yankee. He is Derek Jeter, the team captain, who got there in a most improbable way on Saturday at Yankee Stadium.
He hit a home run.
Jeter, who had singled in the first inning, connected in the third off David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays, driving an off-speed pitch with a full count deep into the seats above the left-field wall. It was only the third home run of the season for Jeter, and his first over the fence in the Bronx since last June 12. Including the postseason, Jeter had homered in just one of his last 108 games.
Jeter became the 28th player in history to reach 3,000 hits, but only the second to do so with a home run; the other was Wade Boggs for Tampa Bay in 1999. Only Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron and Robin Yount joined the club at a younger age than Jeter, who turned 37 on June 26.
That puts Jeter ahead of the pace set by Pete Rose, the career hits leader, who retired at age 45 with 4,256. Jeter is signed for two more years, with a player option for 2014, but he said Thursday that Rose was not on his radar.
“You have to play another five years and get 200 hits to get that extra thousand,” Jeter said. “You’re talking about a long, long time. You never say never, but it’s not something that’s on my mind.”
Jeter’s recent performance offers few hints of Rose’s staying power. This has been Jeter’s most trying season, with a career-low .257 average through Friday. He spent almost three weeks on the disabled list with a strained calf muscle, and has hit a higher percentage of ground balls (65.3 percent through Friday) than any other player in the majors.
Naturally, some of the erosion in Jeter’s skills can be traced to age, and, perhaps, to the extra wear and tear from roughly a season’s worth of games — 147 — across 30 postseason series. He has also played no defensive position besides shortstop, the most demanding spot on the field besides catcher.
Only one other player, Honus Wagner, reached 3,000 hits while still a regular shortstop. Wagner did it in 1914.
“Physically, you have a responsibility that can be difficult, and mentally as well, you have to be in every pitch, every game,” Jeter said, referring to shortstop. “So there’s probably a reason why there’s not too many guys that have played the position that have had that amount of hits. I take pride in it. This is my job. This is the only thing I’ve done.”
Jeter was a high school shortstop in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1992, when the Yankees chose him sixth over all in the draft. He was in the majors within three years, and by 1996 he was there to stay. Jeter never wanted a day off, he said, for fear that George Steinbrenner, the impatient principal owner, would replace him.
There has never been real danger of that, even after last season, when Jeter’s average dipped to .270 just as his contract expired. The Yankees gave him a deal worth at least $51 million over three years, but they did so grudgingly, publicly citing Jeter’s declining performance and challenging him to explore free agency.
Jeter has said he was angered; he had tried to make it clear he only wanted to play for the Yankees. Meanwhile, he worked to improve in the off-season and spring training, eliminating his stride in hopes of having more time to react to each pitch. But Jeter abandoned the adjustment soon after the season started and reverted to his old mechanics — without his old results.
That is hardly unprecedented. Others have reached 3,000 at similarly diminished levels of production — Cal Ripken hit .256 the season he got there, Al Kaline hit .262, Yount hit .264. Jeter, a career .312 hitter, will be known most for relentless consistency, for churning out hits at a rate few have ever matched.
Jeter has seven 200-hit seasons, and 10 with at least 190. Only Rose and Cobb, who rank first and second on the career list, have more 190-hit seasons.
“I take a lot of pride in going out there every single day and to trying to be as consistent as possible,” Jeter said. “I think that’s probably the most difficult thing to do in our sport. Playing well gets you here, consistency keeps you here. That’s the thing that I’ve always tried to focus on.”
After a game in Cleveland last week, Jeter acknowledged that the scrutiny of his struggles had taken some fun from his chase. He has little experience with bad press; few athletes in his era have received such overwhelmingly positive coverage in their careers.
But Jeter has seemed more at ease since returning to Yankee Stadium on Thursday, perhaps sensing that his pursuit was nearing an end. His family and friends have been here, including the former teammates Tino Martinez and Gerald Williams. The scout who signed Jeter, Dick Groch, has been at the ballpark, as has Don Zimmer, an honorary coach for the Rays and Joe Torre’s bench coach in Jeter’s early years.
“I didn’t realize that there was no Yankee that ever got 3,000 hits,” said Zimmer, who has been in baseball 63 years. “And here’s Derek Jeter, the only Yankee that’s going to get 3,000 hits. That’s the thing that blew my mind.”
Jeter’s first hit came at the Seattle Kingdome, a concrete dungeon that was razed years ago. It was only appropriate that his 3,000th come in the Bronx, where Jeter passed Lou Gehrig in 2009 for the franchise record in hits, with 2,722.
That was a stirring moment, even if it had little resonance outside Yankee Stadium. With 3,000 hits, Jeter has matched a revered number in the game’s history, leaving an indelible mark in style.
0 comments:
Post a Comment