August 30, 1999

SPORTS OF THE TIMES

It was a beautiful, butterscotch day, Yankee Stadium was bathed in sunlight and Derek Jeter, who seems to move in perpetual sunshine, was at bat. Jeter cocked his bat in his customary stance, the bat held in such a high, unorthodox manner that it appears he is sprouting an antenna from his helmet. It was the third inning, runners on first and third, none out and the Yankees were behind, 2-0, to Seattle pitcher Paul Abbott. Abbott, a right-hander, threw, and Jeter, a right-handed hitter, whipped the bat around with the speed of a mongoose attacking a lizard, and lined a single to right field, the 762d base hit of his major league career.

The myriad statistics that baseball elicits can give one a headache, but a particular number that Jeter is fashioning is remarkable. It places him in a category with the greatest hitters in baseball history. With his two singles yesterday in the Yankees' 11-5 victory over the Mariners, he has more hits in the first four full years of his career, 751 (he had 12 in 1995), than hitters like Ted Williams (749 in his first four seasons), Cal Ripken (745), Lou Gehrig (736) Ty Cobb (729), Pete Rose (723) and Henry Aaron (718) had. If Derek Sanderson Jeter continues at his present, league-leading pace of hits (175) -- he is batting .348, third in the American League to Nomar Garciaparra's .350 and Bernie Williams's .349 -- Jeter projects to 220 hits this season and 796 hits for his first four full years. He will have passed Stan Musial (792) and Joe DiMaggio (791).

"If," said Jeter, seated at his locker before yesterday's game, "Man, if's a big word. Baseball's a game of failure. Obviously you fail more than you succeed."

His track record as well as his persona portray anything but the concept of failure. At age 25, he appears the most level-headed of athletes. He is approachable and, as Yankee management has learned, coachable. "He's not one of these young guys who thinks he's got it all figured out," the Yankee coach Jose Cardenal said.

In the other clubhouse, Jamie Moyer, a Seattle pitcher, said Jeter had made "huge adjustments at the plate."

"When he first came up," said Moyer, "it was obvious he had talent, but he also had some glaring holes. For one thing, you could pitch him up and in, get him out on his front foot -- that is, get him to shift onto his front foot before he swung. You did that with change of speed, and it took a lot of sting out of his bat." But, added Moyer, Jeter adapted. "That hole no longer exists."

It doesn't exist because Jeter spends good chunks of his time at his craft. While his reputation of dating stars like Mariah Carey may be earned, it has not proved a debilitating distraction to his occupational chores.

Over last winter, he regularly appeared on the Yankees' Tampa spring-training grounds to work on driving inside pitches to left field, instead of fighting them off and slicing them to right. He didn't find this kind of diligence extraordinary. "I live in Tampa," he said, with a shrug. "I work on my game all the time."

Don Zimmer, the Yankees' dugout coach, who has been in professional baseball for 51 years, said that unlike some superb hitters, like Rose and Wade Boggs, Jeter hits with power, and to all fields. "How do you think he hits balls over the right-field fence -- tapping them?" Zimmer said. "He's got a big swing, and for him to have so many hits is phenomenal."

Jeter is also a good-size shortstop, at 6 feet 3 inches, 195 pounds, bigger and with greater range and richer than Johnny Pesky, whom Zimmer remembers as having a terrific major league start. Pesky was a Red Sox shortstop in the 1940's, and had 779 hits in his first four seasons. Pesky got 208 hits in his second season with Boston, in 1946, and batted .335. He dropped slightly in 1947, getting 207 hits with a .324 batting average.

"But they made him take a cut in pay after that season," Zimmer said. "He was a coach for me when I managed the Red Sox, and Johnny told me he's never forgotten that he went from something like $7,000 a year to $6,000."

Jeter, to underscore a difference in eras, went from $750,000 in his third year to $5 million this year, after arbitration. But he says there are no hard feelings about that between him and George Steinbrenner, the team's principal owner. "But he gets upset when Michigan beats Ohio State in football," said Jeter, who is from Michigan while Steinbrenner is from Ohio, "and I do get on him about that."

Jeter, who grew up a Yankee fan in Kalamazoo, said that his favorite player was Dave Winfield, who was not one of Steinbrenner's favorites. "I thought Winfield was the greatest all-round athlete there was," Jeter said. And as far as Winfield's being Mr. May, as Steinbrenner had disparaged him, Jeter said, "He must have got a lot of hits in May then, to get 3,000 for his career."

As for his career numbers, Jeter said: "I just want to be consistent and play as long as I'm having fun. I hope to have a lot of great years left. After all, I'm still the youngest guy on this team."

Looking around the clubhouse of the defending World Series champion Yankees, it turned out he was right. Only 25. Just a babe. Which gives rise to yet another agreeable, if plump, historical baseball image.

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company