Just a Yankee. This is how Derek Jeter sums up his legacy. But since one of the game’s shortest stops is at the peak of its incorporation into the Baseball Hall of Fame, fans know it was much more than that.
Jeter, along with his entrants Ted Simmons and Larry Walker, met with the media Thursday before Wednesday’s Hall of Fame ceremony in Cooperstown, New York, the first since July 2019 after the celebration of the 2020 holidays for the coronavirus pandemic.
When the incorporation finally arrives, it will be about 21 months since Simmons learned that the veterans committee had been tabled and about 20 months since Jeter and Walker were selected in the Writers’ Association’s annual voting round. of Baseball of America.
It’s a long time to craft a speech. Still, Jeter said his is not over.
“I’m still going through the process right now,” Jeter said. “So I’m not done. [Hall of Fame vice president of communications] Jon [Shestakofsky] you’re probably upset with me now, because I was told I had to get it like a month before. It’s something I’ve tried to spend time with. “
No need to worry about the unperturbed Jeter appearing out of sorts in front of a large crowd spread across the grounds of the Clark Sports Center on the outskirts of Cooperstown. After all, he flourished for 20 years of career under the brightest spotlight in baseball.
“I’m looking forward to getting there and going to the museum and meeting all the Hall of Fame and spending some time with them, the ceremony and the speech,” Jeter said. “These are things I try to keep out of my mind, because I want to get into it without preconceived notions of what can happen.”
While his legacy after playing as owner and CEO of the Miami Marlins remains a work in progress, being remembered as a New York Yankee was the ultimate goal of Jeter’s career as a player.
He certainly did it, spending his entire professional career in the Yankees organization and recording 3,465 hits, the sixth place in history, for the club.
“The most important thing in my career, people [ask] what I want to be remembered as, “Jeter said.” I want to be remembered as a Yankee. That was all. This was the only team I wanted to play for, ever, that I remember. This is what I wanted it to be my legacy.
“But when I started playing my career, it’s so much more than what you do on the field. It’s the legacy you leave off the field.”
No candidate was selected in the most recent round of voting for BBWAA and the veterans committee that would have met at the canceled 2020 winter meetings could not be convened. Thus, without new entrants entering, Simmons, Jeter and Walker will enter the showroom during a 2021 ceremony as a 2020 Class.
“I’m looking forward to getting there and going to the museum, meeting all the Hall of Fame and spending time with them, the ceremony and the speech. These are things I try to keep out of my mind, because I want to get into it. without preconceived notions of what might happen. ”
Derek Jeter
All three were asked about the long wait for the start day after last year’s cancellation.
Simmons said it was “good and bad. Bad because you’ve had to wait another year, but good because it’s been extended another year.” Jeter said there were so many things in the world after his election that he “really didn’t think much about it.” Walker, who was elected in his final year of eligibility for the BBWAA vote, simply said, “Don’t worry. You waited 10 years, what’s one more?”
In contrast to the prolonged composition of Jeter’s speech, Simmons said he “got it right away” when he was elected. Walker said he endured sleepless nights during the speech writing process and that the date of the induction finally arrives.
“There are nights when I’m not going to sleep,” Walker said. “And there are nights when, if I go to sleep, it’s not long before I wake up and it goes through my head. Believe me, butterflies are here, right now, and there are many.”
If it helps Walker relax, he may find that Jeter is likely to absorb most of the attention next week as Yankee fans flood the state and beyond. The ceremony will take place three days before the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, a period in American history and baseball in which the Yankees, along with Jeter, occupied a prominent place during the subsequent healing process.
These sentiments will be highlighted next week, when Cooperstown will host its largest crowd in more than two years.
“What we discovered was that even if it was for a short period of time, even for three hours a day,” Jeter said, “we gave people something to cheer them on. We felt like we were playing some “More than us. We were playing all over New York. Sport plays an important role, in my mind, in the healing process of many communities at certain times.”