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Derek Jeter

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Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter

Position Shortstop
Team New York Yankees
Years of Experience 10 years
Age 31
Height 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Weight 195 lb (88 kg)
Bats Right
Throws Right
College N/A
2005 Salary $19,600,000
Place of Birth Pequannock, New Jersey
Selection 1st round, 6th pick 1992 amateur draft
Drafted by New York Yankees
Major League Debut May 29, 1995

Derek Sanderson Jeter (born June 26, 1974 in Pequannock, New Jersey) is a six-time All-Star shortstop for the New York Yankees, and is the current team captain.

Early life

Derek Jeter was born in Pequannock, New Jersey to Charles and Dorothy Jeter; however, most of his childhood was spent in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Jeter was a star baseball player at Kalamazoo Central High School, where he also played basketball, and in 1992 he was named High School Player of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association. Although he received a baseball scholarship to attend the University of Michigan, he was drafted by the New York Yankees in the first round of the 1992 amateur draft.

Pro baseball accomplishments

Jeter made his major league debut on May 29, 1995. He earned Rookie of the Year honors in his first full season, 1996, in which he had a .314 batting average. During the 8th inning of Game 1 of the American League Championship Series that year, Jeter was awarded a home run on a memorable and controversial play. Jeter hit a pitch to the right field wall that was pulled into the stands by a 12-year-old spectator, Jeffrey Maier, thereby depriving Oriole outfielder Tony Tarasco the opportunity of making a play. Despite protests from the Orioles, the home run call was upheld, which allowed the Yankees to tie and eventually win the game in extra innings, on a memorable walkoff blast by Bernie Williams.

File:Derek Jeter1.JPG
Derek Jeter warming up before a game.

Jeter has maintained his success on the field. During the 1998 season, Jeter batted .324, led the American League with 127 runs, earned his first All-Star appearance, and placed 3rd in the AL MVP voting.

1999 showed more progress, as Jeter reached career highs in batting average, home runs, RBIs and walks, and led the AL in hits with 219. During the 2000 season, he was voted the MVP of the All-Star Game and the World Series.

The 2004 season was quite a rollercoaster for Jeter statistically. Early in the year, he had a mysterious 0-for-27 slump and inexplicably was hitting .198 after the first two months of the season. However, he later recovered and ended the year with 23 home runs and a .292 batting average.

In 2004 and 2005 Jeter won the American League Gold Glove Award.

Mr. November

Throughout his career, Jeter has been known as one of the best clutch postseason players in baseball history. Since arriving in the majors in 1996, Jeter has played in the playoffs every year, and was a member of 6 American League Championship teams and 4 World Series Championship teams. Jeter's personal postseason performance has been a major factor in the Yankees' success. The term "Mr. November" comes from Jeter's accomplishments in the 2001 World Series, which ran into November that year due to the baseball season being delayed as a result of the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

Some of Jeter's most memorable moments have come in postseason play. These include the aforementioned eighth inning, game-tying disputed home run against Baltimore in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS and his game-winning, tenth-inning home run off Arizona's Byung-Hyun Kim in Game 4 of the 2001 World Series, as well as one of the most unusual, improbable, and amazing defensive plays in postseason history: With the Yankees down 0 games to 2 versus the Oakland Athletics in the 2001 American League Division Series, and holding on to a 1-0 lead in game 3, with an A's runner on first base, Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina served up a high fly ball to deep right field to the A's Terrence Long. With Oakland's Jeremy Giambi about to round third, Yanks right fielder Shane Spencer retrieved the ball and threw home. The throw sailed over the heads of both cut off man 2B Alfonso Soriano and backup cut off man 1B Tino Martinez. With Giambi nearing homeplate, Jeter, for some unexplained reason ran across the field, and nearing the 1st base line, caught the ball off a bounce and shovel passed it across his body to catcher Jorge Posada who promptly tagged the back of Giambi's knee, a fraction of a second before his foot hit homeplate. Jeter somehow had the intuition and wherewithal to stray far from the standard shortstop's position and preserved the Yankee win. The Yankees later went on to win the series in 5.

As of 2005, Jeter has a career .306 postseason batting average with 16 Home runs and 46 RBIs. He has a record 142 career postseason hits.

Yankee captain

The Yankees named Jeter the 11th captain in Yankees history on June 3, 2003. (However, Howard W. Rosenberg, the foremost historian on baseball captains and author of the 2003 book Cap Anson 1: When Captaining a Team Meant Something: Leadership in Baseball's Early Years, has found that the count of Yankee captains failed to count Hall of Famer Clark Griffith, the 1903-05 captain, and Kid Elberfeld, the 1906-09 one, with 1913 Manager Frank Chance a strong circumstantial candidate to have been captain that year as well. Therefore, Jeter may in fact be the 13th or 14th Yankees captain.)

Turn 2 Foundation

Jeter began the Turn 2 Foundation, a charity organization, in 1996. The Foundation was established to help children and teens avoid drug and alcohol addiction, and to reward those who show high academic achievement. The organization's name was chosen, besides the baseball reference to a double play, to demonstrate the goal of giving youths a place to "turn to", besides drugs and alcohol.[1]

The Foundation provides many youth activities, including:

  • After School Programs
  • Baseball Clinics
  • Scholarship Programs
  • The "Proud to Be Me Program", where youths learn how to say no to drugs and alcohol
  • The "Turn 2 Kidfest", an annual clinic to reward positive, healthy lifestyles by providing activities. Jeter personally attends the event.

Personal life

Jeter's personal life has been the subject of considerable attention in the press ever since his rookie season in 1996, when he emerged as something of a matinee idol. Despite Jeter's best efforts at keeping his personal life private, his various high-profile relationships with pop diva Mariah Carey, actress Jordana Brewster, and former Miss Universe Lara Dutta have all been subject to intense media scrutiny. [2] Most recently, Jeter has been linked with MTV personality Vanessa Minnillo.

World Baseball Classic

Derek is the starting shortstop for the USA team in the first ever World Baseball Classic. Yankee teammates joining him on the USA club include third baseman Álex Rodríguez, centerfielder Johnny Damon, and pitcher Al Leiter.

Trivia

Wikiquote has quotations related to Derek Jeter.
Preceded by American League Rookie of the Year
1996 		Succeeded by
Preceded by World Series MVP
2000 		Succeeded by
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