2020 inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Derek Jeter, finally gets his moment in the spotlight on Wednesday, September 8th in Cooperstown, where the ceremony, postponed from last year, will take place at 1:30 p.m.
Jeter spent his entire 20-year baseball career with the New York Yankees as their All-Star shortstop. Readers of this blog know of my long-held esteem for the man; I wrote a tribute to him back in 2017, when the Yankees retired his #2 in Monument Park at The Stadium. As I stated back then:
Jeter holds many all-time franchise records for the New York Yankees, including most all-time hits (3,465), doubles (544), games played (2,747), stolen bases (358), times on base (4,716), plate appearances (12,602) and at bats (11,195). He was the 1996 Rookie of the Year, a 14-time All-Star (including a Most Valuable Player All-Star Game award the same year he was named World Series MVP). He won 5 Gold Glove Awards, 5 Silver Slugger Awards, 2 Hank Aaron Awards, and a Roberto Clemente Award. He was the 28th player in Major League Baseball History to pass the 3,000 hit mark. Always a teammate with a “flair for the dramatic,” his 3000th hit was a home-run on a day in which he went 5 for 5, driving in the winning run. He is, in fact, the only Yankee player with more than 3,000 lifetime hits (which ranks sixth all-time among Major League Baseball players, and the most all-time hits by a shortstop).
A tip of the baseball cap to The Captain. It’s about time!
