Sports Illustrated - Sports Illustrated Derek Jeter: A Celebration of the Yankee Captain

Contents

Derek Jeter floats above New York in 1999.

Jeter at shortstop at Legends Field in 2001.

1. The Phenom

Through 1999

Jeter before a game against Oakland in June 1995.

Jeter played for the Chandler Diamondbacks in the Arizona Fall League in 1994.

The Yankees hoped Jeter would be their starting shortstop in 1995. A shoulder injury delayed those plans.

New YorkNew York

Theres a blast from the past in the Big Apple, where rookie shortstop Rey Ordez of the Mets and his Yankees counterpart, Derek Jeter, evoke memories of Pee Wee and the Scooter

by Gerry Callahan

Excerpted from Sports Illustrated , May 6, 1996

On Opening Day in a miserably cold mist at Shea Stadium, Mets rookie shortstop Rey Ordez went to his knees and brought a lot of New York baseball fans with him. In the seventh inning of a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, Ordez scooped up a low throw from leftfielder Bernard Gilkey and relayed it 150 feet to the plate from his knees, cutting down speedy Cardinals shortstop Royce Clayton and leaving eyewitnesses pleading for a replay.

Most New Yorkers come out of the womb convinced that they have seen it all, but Ordez, a 23-year-old Cuban defector making his major league debut, left them as wide-eyed and giddy as Canadian tourists in Times Square. It was much more than a spectacular playit was an original, a wonderfully instinctive move that stood out even in this age of ESPN plays of the day/week/year.

The Mets went on to beat the Cardinals 76 that day, and the great Ozzie Smith, who had witnessed Ordezs throw from his place in the visitors dugout, said, Its safe to say that hes the second coming of me.

Across the Triborough Bridge the Yankees believe that they too have found themselves a purebred shortstop. On Opening Day in Cleveland, 21-year-old Derek Jeter was in the Yankees starting lineup, the 11th shortstop to start the opener in pinstripes since 1981 and the first rookie to do so since 1962, when Tom Tresh subbed for Tony Kubek, who was in the military. Jeter hit a home run in his second at-bat and made a pretty nifty defensive play himself, pulling down an over-the-shoulder fly in short centerfield to save a run.

Four weeks into his rookie season Jeter was hitting .265 with a .390 on-base percentage. Ordez, a weak hitter in the minors who was batting a surprising .342 through Sunday, may be the next Ozzie in the field, but the Yankees are hoping Jeter is a young Ripken or Larkin, an all-around shortstop with a sizzling bat to match his solid glove. I think patience is the key, says Yankees third baseman Wade Boggs. But were in New York. Patience and New York dont always go together.

It has been years since New York has had a shortstop who got people excited, years since Kubek (195765) and Bud Harrelson (6577) were hits on Broadway for the Yankees and the Mets, respectively. Now the city has two potential stars at shortstop. Now comes the fun part. Now we see if two promising rookies can survive in a baseball town that often eats its young.

Beyond their pinstripes and their position, Ordez and Jeter have about as much in com- mon as Havana, Cuba, and Kalamazoo, Mich., their respective hometowns. Jeter is long and lean (63, 185 pounds), with the body of an NBA two-guard and the raw athletic ability to play any position. He just happened to choose shortstop. Ordez, at 59 and 159 pounds, looks like a middleweight fighter, with a compact muscular frame that doesnt carry an ounce of fat. The shortstop position was invented with Rey Ordez in mind.

Jeter is friendly and outgoing, and the only time he ducks a question is when he is asked to praise himself. He was proud to get number 2 because all the other single digits (except 6, which belongs to his manager, Joe Torre) were worn by Yankee legends and have been retired. Jeter can match the names of those legends to their retired numbers, a remarkable feat for a big league rookie in this day and age.

Ordez is reticent and zealously private, wary of even his colleagues in the Mets organization. Last year, while traveling with Triple A Norfolk, he was held up at the Canadian border by questions about his immigration status, which didnt help to allay his fear of authority. Like a lot of Cubans, hes still wary of authority figures, says Mets assistant general manager Steve Phillips. Were still trying to convince him that were all in this together: coaches, managers, players, front office.

For now, Rafael Landestoy, a minor league manager in the Mets organization, is serving as Ordezs interpreter. Ordez will speak some English to teammates but not to reporters. Phillips says the team is trying to structure things to make success more likely for Ordez.

A young Jeter during batting practice at Yankee Stadium.

I told him that he has to learn the language, says Landestoy, a native of the Dominican Republic. I told him that all the sportswriters are going to want to talk to him all the time. But hes afraid. He doesnt want to say the wrong thing.

In a 20-minute interview in mid-April, Ordez sat on a stool in front of his locker and looked down at the floor. He didnt say the wrong thing or much of anything. You have to remember where hes coming from, says Phillips. There was not a lot of trust involved with the Cuban national team.

Jeter is the all-American boy, born in New Jersey and raised in Kalamazoo. As a kid he would return to Jersey in the summers to visit relatives and root for the Yankees. He wore Yankees caps and T-shirts and idolized Dave Winfield. He was a basketball and baseball star in high school and spent one semester at Michigan. He says all the credit for his success belongs to his parents, Dorothy, an accountant, and Charles, a drug-and-alcohol-abuse counselor with a Ph.D. Dorothy is white, Charles is Black, and Derek announces proudly, No one knows what I am, so I can relate to everyone. Ive got all kinds of friends: Black, white, and Spanish.

He is a one-man melting pot, fittingly taking a lead role in New York. As he left Yankee Stadium after a game recently, he stopped on his way to the parking lot and signed autographs for a crowd of kids. Jeter is prepared for the onslaught of autograph gnats and collectibles pests who swarm to highly touted rookies, but he is determined not to let them ruin his days. He recently took an apartment in Manhattan, a rare move for any New York athlete, let alone someone so young. He plans to live alone, even though it makes his mother nervous. In his first season in the city he intends to see more than just his living room and his locker.