Yankees Magazine: Final Summit 

”He’s not going to the University of Michigan. The only place Derek Jeter is going is Cooperstown.”

After studying Kalamazoo Central High School shortstop Derek Jeter, former Yankees scout Dick Groch was certain that the 17-year-old was destined for the Hall of Fame. He hoped his bold proclamation to Yankees brass would convince them, too, that if Jeter was still available, selecting him with the sixth overall pick in the 1992 Draft was all but mandatory. Even though Jeter had committed to play college baseball for the Wolverines, Groch was confident that the young phenom -- who was born in Pequannock, New Jersey, but grew up in southern Michigan and whose childhood dream was to play shortstop for the Yankees -- would follow his heart and sign a professional contract. Once that happened, Groch was sure that Jeter would become a star in New York -- perhaps even a legend.

That’s exactly how the story played out. On Sept. 8, Groch’s prophecy will officially be fulfilled when Jeter is inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

A quarter-century has passed since one of the great sports stories in New York City history truly began to take shape. After ascending from Rookie ball to the Bronx in less than four years, Jeter burst onto the scene in 1996 and soon became one of baseball’s biggest stars.

Champagne would fill the home clubhouse at the old Yankee Stadium on Oct. 26, 1996, when, behind a group of young stars and savvy veterans, the Yankees won their first championship in 18 years. But even before that magical night in the Bronx, Jeter, the soon-to-be 1996 American League Rookie of the Year, was well on his way to becoming a household name.

During the ’96 regular season, passionate baseball fans in New York City became Jeter loyalists for life. Beyond his .314 batting average, Jeter showed a swagger, a charisma and an all-out hustle that got just about everyone else in the Big Apple to notice him, and compelled millions of fans around the world to root for him.

That fall, the Yankees earned the chance to play on a national stage, defeating the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles in the first two rounds of the postseason before coming back from a 2-games-to-none deficit against the Atlanta Braves to win the World Series. Jeter batted .361 that October and authored one of his first signature moments, hitting a clutch home run in Game 1 of the ALCS -- with a little help from a young fan sitting in right field -- while captivating viewers with his now-famous jump throw that robbed one opposing batter after another of sure base hits.

After helping the Yankees clinch their first AL pennant since 1981, Jeter graced the cover of Sports Illustrated alongside the headline, “Holy Cow!” That ode to Phil Rizzuto, the team’s Hall of Fame shortstop from long ago, was splashed on top of a photo of Jeter making a throw from his knees. A few inches below, the subhead perfectly summed up that time: “Gritty players like rookie sensation Derek Jeter lead the Yankees to their first World Series in 15 years.”

“The Yankees hadn’t been to a World Series in a long time,” Jeter, now 47, says from his office at loanDepot park in Miami. “Things happened quickly. The first time you go through it, you never forget it. That was the beginning. You’re on the team, and you’re relatively unknown when the season starts. But then we started to have a little success, and things changed for me and for the team quickly.”

Jeter hadn’t even turned 22 years old, yet his dream of playing shortstop for the New York Yankees had been realized, and after the team’s memorable comeback against Atlanta in the Fall Classic, he was already a world champion.

Whether it was on the heels of that season or any of his other milestone accomplishments, Jeter was never complacent, always looking to the next day. He never looked too far ahead, but he rarely looked back, either. While he was playing, Jeter was reluctant -- if not completely unwilling -- to publicly acknowledge personal accomplishments. His focus was on helping the Yankees win games and on being consistent. Jeter was named captain of the New York Yankees in 2003, but long before he was officially given the title by owner George M. Steinbrenner, he was recognized as the team’s on-field leader.

Jeter’s leadership, along with his rare natural ability, paved the way to what will take place this month when he is inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Jeter will enter the Hall as a member of the Class of 2020, and in historic fashion. Six weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic began to ravage the world, Jeter received the largest share of votes for a position player in history -- 99.7 percent.

At the time of his election, Jeter found himself fielding more questions about the one unknown voter who didn’t support his candidacy, preventing him from following in the footsteps of Mariano Rivera as the only unanimous selection to date.

“The first thing I would ask is, how did Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth not get 100 percent of the votes when they were on the ballot?” says Jeter, who became part-owner of the Miami Marlins in 2017 and serves as the organization’s chief executive officer. “That’s my first reaction. Also, it’s not like the number of votes determines how you rank someone who is in the Hall of Fame. You’re either in the Hall of Fame, or you’re not. I think that trying to get that many people to agree on anything is difficult. But I don’t really sit around and think about the percentage. I get asked about it all the time. ‘Who was the one person who didn’t vote for you?’ I don’t know, but I don’t really look at the percentage anyway.”

Induction Weekend was postponed last summer, then pushed back in 2021 to Sept. 8. For Jeter and his family, the 18-month period between his election and the finalization of induction plans was far different from the experience that Hall of Famers in previous classes had.

“I know that my parents are extremely proud,” he says. “But I recently saw my dad for the first time in a year a few weeks ago, and I only saw my mom one or two times since the election. Unfortunately, because of the circumstances, we haven’t had a chance to sit down and have a conversation about it because the world turned upside down so quickly. It was like there were all of these ecstatic feelings and excitement and jubilation and then, bam, the pandemic hit. So, in order of importance, with everything going on with people’s families and lives, we had a lot of other things to talk about.”

For Jeter, the moment and place in time when the proverbial music stopped, when the pandemic swallowed up the excitement of a life achievement, is etched in his memory bank.

“We were actually at the airport about to fly up to Cooperstown for the Hall of Fame tour, and we had to cancel the flight when the pandemic hit,” he says. “It was a like a switch flipped, and I really haven’t been thinking about it. It got delayed a whole year, but now people are starting to ask me about it. Now the excitement is back.”

When the long wait finally ends, Jeter will be joined in Cooperstown by several members of his family, including his wife, Hannah, and their two young children, Bella and Story. Jeter knows that it’s unlikely his daughters -- who will be 4 and 2 years old in September -- will remember much from the ceremony, but sharing the seminal accomplishment with his family is what he expects to be the most impactful aspect of the trip to upstate New York.

“The Hall of Fame represents the next chapter in my life,” Jeter says. “Having a family of my own now is the greatest thing in my life. So, when I think about what the induction will be like, I look forward to making memories with my wife and with our kids.

“I met my wife toward the end of my career, so I didn’t know her when we were winning championships,” Jeter continues. “Our kids weren’t born yet, and regardless of how much they’ll remember, it will be great to have them there and to be able to experience this with them.”

Jeter may have given thought to what his induction will be like, but he has resisted the temptation of asking Joe Torre or Rivera -- two of his closest confidants and two recent inductees -- what to expect.

“I haven’t spoken to either of them about it,” Jeter says through a laugh. “You know why? Because I don’t want to have any preconceived notion of what to expect. I just want to experience it for myself.”

In a completely different capacity, Jeter experienced Cooperstown for the first time in 1987, making the pilgrimage to upstate New York with his family at the age of 13.

“I still remember how special of a place it was,” he says. “I went there with my eyes wide open looking around at so many of the players who were in the Hall of Fame. I was familiar with a lot of the Yankees players who were already in the Hall of Fame, but going up there provided me with a history lesson that I never forgot. You don’t sit down and think that you might have an opportunity to actually get there some day. That wasn’t part of the dream, because it’s just so far out there.”

As for what Cooperstown will look and sound like when this year’s induction takes place on a Wednesday afternoon in September, it’s hard for anyone -- even the people most familiar with the longstanding tradition that dates back to 1939 -- to predict. The planning process has evolved over the last year, and by early summer, it seemed that the 2021 ceremony would be more similar to those from recent years than originally expected.

While the United States and the world raced to provide as many COVID-19 vaccines as possible in the early part of 2021, the spread of the virus and its dangerous variants continued to wreak havoc. Uncertain about where the worldwide health crisis would be during the summer, the Hall of Fame first announced that the ceremony would be a small, private indoor affair, without any fans or previously inducted Hall of Famers.

Jeter understood the situation, but he was candid when speaking about the void that not having fans in Cooperstown would create. For one of the most beloved athletes in American sports history, a Yankees legend on par with Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle, the thought of a tiny and private gathering seemed unimaginable.

Eventually, though, the Hall made the popular decision to change everything about the ceremony.

“On behalf of our board of directors and our staff, we are thrilled to be able to welcome our Hall of Famers -- the living legends -- and fans back to Cooperstown to celebrate the induction of the Class of 2020,” said Jane Forbes Clark, the chairman of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in a June 9 statement. “Returning the induction ceremony to an outdoor event will provide the baseball community with the opportunity to visit Cooperstown and celebrate the induction of four of the game’s greats.”

That announcement also included other important details about the ceremony at which Jeter -- along with former big league stars Larry Walker and Ted Simmons, as well as longtime players union leader Marvin Miller -- will be honored. In an effort to limit the number of fans seated on the grounds of the Clark Sports Center, the Hall planned to release a small number of free tickets for admission to that area on July 12.

With more than a month remaining before fans could even try to secure their place on the enormous field that sits in front of the stage, every available hotel room within an hour of Cooperstown was quickly booked. From Albany to Utica and from Oneonta to Cooperstown itself, room rates skyrocketed -- with the hotels located in Cooperstown going for up to $1,500 a night. Within days of the Hall making its new plan, every hotel was sold out.

Then, less than two weeks after the June 9 announcement, the Hall issued another press release: The ceremony would be open to fans as usual, with free lawn seating available.

While this year’s ceremony probably still won’t match the type of spectacle it was in 2019, when an estimated 55,000 people watched several legends, including Rivera and fellow Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina, get inducted, the environment will be fitting for one of the single most accomplished players the game has ever seen.

Even before this year’s plans changed, Jeter could easily think back to induction weekend in 2019, when he was in Cooperstown to support Rivera.

“What an event it is,” Jeter says. “It takes over the entire town. To have that many people in one place at one time just goes to show you how much the Hall of Fame means to our sport. I mean no disrespect to any other sport, because making it to the Hall of Fame in any sport is pretty special, but it means more to baseball fans than anyone else. It’s something that people circle on their calendars years in advance.”

For a player who reveled in the biggest moments, it should come as no surprise that Jeter looked forward to the task of writing his Hall of Fame speech.

“I haven’t gotten very far with it yet,” he says. “Most of the time I address people, I just wing it. But everyone tells me that I can’t do that with this one, especially because it’s 10 minutes long. I’ve had a year and a half, but I just started writing some notes down a few days ago. When I started reflecting on my career and how I got to this point, I began to realize that it’s definitely fun to go down memory lane. Now, I’m pretty excited about putting it all together.”

For millions of fans, looking back at Jeter’s career has become a pastime in and of itself. The Hall of Fame induction ceremony will mark the coronation of Jeter’s playing career, a journey that included so many incredible moments. When reflecting on the highlights that punctuated his remarkable two decades in pinstripes, Jeter gravitates toward a specific moment from 2014.

“It might be a little unfair, because it’s the most recent or fresh in my mind,” Jeter says. “But the last game I played at Yankee Stadium is what I think about. It was the only game I played in at either of the two Yankee Stadiums when we had been eliminated. That was the only home game I played in that didn’t count. But the way the fans reacted was incredible. It was like a playoff atmosphere, and I think it just showed the special bond that I have with Yankees fans. The one thing with them is that they appreciate when you go to work every day, when you work hard and don’t make excuses. To get the chance to share that moment with them, even though it ultimately didn’t mean anything in the standings, it meant a lot to Yankees fans, and it meant even more to me.”

More than anything, Jeter wanted to win, and he was a champion -- five times over. The Captain’s teams not only brought home five world championships, but also another two American League pennants. In Jeter’s 20 seasons, the Yankees missed the postseason just three times. When he spoke about his craft, it was abundantly clear that winning meant far more than personal accomplishments. Still, to this day, when the topic of titles comes up, the eternal competitor in Jeter shines through.

“That’s why you play the game,” he says. “I will always be proud that our teams won five championships. It’s something that stays with you forever, regardless of what you do the rest of your life. But what’s funny is that my mind always goes to the other ones that we should have won. We won five, but we should have won seven or eight. It’s not easy to win one championship, let alone five. We had some great teams, and Mr. Steinbrenner allowed us to stick together and to keep growing. I know that there were nine years between championships four and five, but that just goes to show you how hard it is to do.”

Jeter was far from a passenger on those championship teams -- he was, in many ways, the conductor, the pilot, the driving force behind them. In a record 158 career postseason games, Jeter batted .308 with 20 home runs and 61 RBIs. Jeter’s 200 hits, 302 total bases, 111 runs scored and 32 doubles in October play are all postseason records.

The fact that Jeter played during the expanded postseason format and on a perennial winner allowed him to participate in more playoff games than anyone in history -- that is undeniable. Nevertheless, Jeter still played at the highest level when the pressure was most intense and when he was facing one dominant pitcher after another for the equivalent of an entire season. That body of work is unmatched in history.

Adding to Jeter’s sparkling postseason resume, he took home World Series MVP honors after the Yankees defeated the Mets in the 2000 Fall Classic. In what he considers the most important Fall Classic of his career, Jeter batted .409 with two home runs, including a leadoff blast that set the tone in a crucial Game 4 win.

“That was probably the most fun World Series I played in, just because it was all that anyone was talking about in New York,” Jeter says. “If we didn’t win that Series, I might have had to move out of Manhattan. It was one of those Series that we had to win.”

If the 2000 World Series could be described as “fun,” the Fall Classic that took place a year later had a dramatic and heart-wrenching feel to it. Following the tragedies of 9/11, the Yankees embarked on an inspiring postseason run that led to Game 7 of the Fall Classic.

If Jeter hadn’t made the now-famous “Flip Play” to save Game 3 of the 2001 American League Division Series -- when his team was already down 2-games-to-none against Oakland -- that entire postseason would probably have been much shorter for the Yankees. After the Yankees came back to defeat the A’s, they made short work of the Seattle Mariners, clinching their fifth American League title in Jeter’s first full six seasons. Besides catapulting the Yankees to the Fall Classic, the ALCS triumph also prevented Seattle from breaking the 1998 Yankees’ record of 125 total wins (including the postseason).

“If you look at what Seattle did in 2001, they won 116 regular-season games, but they didn’t win a championship,” Jeter says. “Just like our team in 1998, they had a historic regular season, but we went out and won a championship. When we beat the Mariners in 2001, I think it just enhanced the lore of our 1998 team. It proved how hard it is to finish the postseason the way we did in ’98.”

Game 4 of the 2001 World Series began on Oct. 31, and it ended a few seconds after the clock struck midnight. In Major League Baseball’s first November action, Jeter hit a two-out walk-off home run against Arizona Diamondbacks closer Byung-Hyun Kim. The long ball not only earned Jeter the nickname “Mr. November,” but it instantly became part of an unforgettable narrative in which the drama of baseball gave millions of Americans a welcomed and impactful distraction in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Even though the Yankees eventually lost that Fall Classic in the ninth inning of Game 7 in Arizona, what they did throughout that postseason, and especially at Yankee Stadium, was nothing short of incredible.

“That was the most tense atmosphere I remember playing baseball in,” Jeter says. “We felt like it was our job to give New Yorkers something to be smile about. We knew that nothing we could do would make them forget what had happened, but we wanted to take their minds off it for as long as possible. Hitting that home run was everything I had dreamed about as a baseball player. Part of the dream is that you’re in your backyard, and you hit a home run to win a World Series game. That’s what every kid dreams about, and I was able to do that.”

***

Jeter’s October heroics propelled him to iconic status, but his consistent greatness during 20 regular seasons is ultimately the reason he earned 396 of the potential 397 votes for election into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

The statistics provide proof that he was one of the most consistent players from his or any other era of the game. He only missed significant time due to injury twice, and he amassed 200 or more hits eight times.

“I took it one day at a time and tried to help the team win every day,” he says. “If you have that mindset, and you don’t have these far-fetched goals, it’s one step at a time. I just took that approach throughout my career.”

Jeter batted .300 or better in 12 seasons, with a career-best .349 average in 1999. The 14-time American League All-Star selection and .310 career hitter tallied 260 home runs and drove in 1,311 runs. He collected three hits in the 2000 Midsummer Classic, and he was named the game’s MVP. At the demanding shortstop position, Jeter took home five AL Gold Glove Awards, and he garnered the same number of Silver Slugger Awards.

“I took a lot of pride in the fact that my teammates, the organization and the fans could count on me playing,” says Jeter, whose No. 2 was retired by the Yankees in 2017. “I didn’t want to sit out. I didn’t want to watch. If I didn’t feel great, I still wanted to play, because being out there for my team was the most important thing. I think consistency is one of the most undervalued characteristics of any profession. A lot of times you don’t realize that until it’s gone. I always prided myself on being available and on being consistent. I wanted my organization to know what they could expect from me. Of course, you want to get better every year, but I wanted to be consistent. I didn’t want to have one good year or even five good years. I wanted to help the team win championships year in and year out and play as consistently as possible for a long time.”

Besides playing 12 seasons for Torre, Jeter shared the field in countless games with Rivera and fellow Hall of Famer Wade Boggs. He also spent time with other members of baseball’s ultimate fraternity, including Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Goose Gossage and, early in his career, Joe DiMaggio. Jeter’s take on how those players stood out from the rest is simple.

“Longevity,” he says. “They played for a long time, and they were great players for a long time. It’s not like they were great for three or four years; they had success for an extended period of time. Those guys are the greatest ever to play, and the reason they are the greatest to ever do it is because of the longevity of their careers. That’s really hard to do. Playing for 15 or 20 years in the Majors is not an easy task. For those guys, it’s the longevity and consistency that makes them stand out.”

With respect to every other statistical accomplishment Jeter had, his 3,465 hits cemented his place in Cooperstown. That total ranks sixth in history, meaning that of the more than 22,000 Major Leaguers, only Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Tris Speaker collected more hits than Jeter.

“That’s something that’s hard to believe,” says Jeter, who notched his 3,000th hit with a home run in 2011. “That’s not a goal that you set. The goals that I had were to be consistent, to play every day. I was fortunate that I hit at the top of the lineup for most of my career, but really, it’s just hard to believe that I was able get that many hits.”

For Derek Jeter, the baseball player, Cooperstown is the final destination in a long journey. The scout who convinced the Yankees of Jeter’s greatness knew that the small upstate New York town that represents baseball immortality was Jeter’s baseball destiny long before the rest of the world realized it. But not even Groch could have imagined that Jeter would officially become a Hall of Famer on a Wednesday afternoon in September.

In the end, fans will be in Cooperstown to watch Derek Jeter’s induction ceremony, and that’s how this story was meant to end.

“For baseball players, you can’t get any higher than the Hall of Fame,” Jeter says. “There’s nowhere else to go. This is the pinnacle of a career, but it’s not just a career in New York. It’s a career that started in Little League when I was 5 years old. It’s a long time to get to this point, and I feel like this is a celebration of a lot of people’s work.”