*New York Times article*

April 4, 1999

The scout was a careful man, never given to hyperbole, distinguished and respected, with a courtly manner that earned him the nickname of the Prince in his days as a pitcher. He watched 17-year-old Derek Jeter play baseball in the summer of 1991 in Kalamazoo, Mich., tracking him into the spring of 1992. He liked Jeter's arm and lean frame and his speed, but the scout looked for more.

In his eighth decade, the scout wrote out his reports, his handwriting and his choice of words precise; there was no doubt how this scout felt about any player, his supervisor would say years later. You read his reports and the scout either liked a player or he didn't. There was no hedging.

Jeter's skills were impressive and he radiated joy when he played, the scout thought. Intrigued, he did what all good scouts do: he started asking around, a private investigator with a stopwatch and a radar gun. What kind of kid is Derek? Do his teammates like him? Is his ego out of control? Is he a good student? Does he want to go to college? What's his family like?

The scout would learn a lot about Derek Jeter. Good things.

Seven years later, Jeter is set to begin his fourth year as the Yankees' everyday shortstop. They open the 1999 season in Oakland on Monday.

Ask around Kalamazoo, and everybody seems to have only good things to say about Derek Jeter and his family. Derek was the type of kid, Evelyn Lal said, "that you wanted your kid to be friends with."

Shanti Lal, her son, befriended Derek in the fourth grade, in Mrs. Garzelloni's class at St. Augustine Cathedral School in Kalamazoo. "Derek was one of those kids you just never forget, and I would say that even if he wasn't playing baseball," said Shirley Garzelloni, who retired last year. "He was the kind of student any teacher would want to have. I was just struck with how much he cared about his fellow classmates."

He appeared a little shy and quiet, she thought, but had a composed confidence, even as a boy. He got along with everybody and succeeded without needing to be prodded or praised. "He was completely self-motivated, creative, never wasted any time," Garzelloni recalled. "There are kids who will say to you, 'I don't have anything to do' -- not with Derek. He always found something to do. I remember doing a report card and thinking, 'Does he realize just how intelligent he is?' "

As smart as he was, Garzelloni said, Jeter never carried himself as if he were any different from his classmates. Evelyn Lal said, "He's quiet, but at the same time, he's very smart -- he knows how to fit in, to get along."

He was comfortable around different types of people and, his father suggested, that made sense. Charles Jeter is black and from Alabama and Dorothy Jeter is white and from New Jersey, and Derek seemed at ease with kids from all kinds of backgrounds.

There were the trials of youth: Charles Jeter remembered that once when Derek was perhaps 10 or 11, a teacher told them that Derek had said something cruel to a classmate. His parents chastised Derek, told him this was unacceptable. You treat people the way you want to be treated, they said, and Derek thought about this quietly, absorbing and learning.

"He was pretty much head and shoulders above his contemporaries, but he never came across as being arrogant," said Chris Oosterban -- Jeter stills calls her "Mrs. O" -- who taught writing and history to Jeter at St. Augustine when he was in the seventh and eighth grade. "He didn't paint a glowing picture of himself, and he didn't have this 'I'm really cool' attitude. He was very genuine and humble."

Jeter worked as a tutor in a computer laboratory in his last two years of high school at Kalamazoo Central, and Sally Padley, who taught Jeter in British literature, thought he conducted himself perfectly. "He just had an easy manner, no signs of conceit, and when he was helping people, he didn't make any of them feel less important," said Padley.

She taught him in the last hour of school, a time when some student-athletes departed to prepare for games. "He absolutely never asked for any special consideration," Padley recalled. "He never asked out of class, never bragged about his baseball."

But baseball was significant to him. His favorite team, Derek told his fourth-grade teacher, was the New York Yankees, and he wrote an essay in the eighth grade of his desire to play shortstop for the Yankees. Padley asked her 11th-grade students to create a coat of arms, unique to each of them and their personalities. In one corner of Jeter's rendering, he included a picture of himself wearing a Yankees uniform.

A Prediction That Came True

The scout, careful and understated as he was, wrote an assessment of Jeter: He's a special player and he's a special kid, and this caught the attention of his supervisor, who had never read words like this from the scout. Derek Jeter, the scout told his supervisor, is going to be the anchor and the foundation of a winning club.

There was a meeting of all the team's scouts just before the draft in 1992, and they discussed the available players. In these meetings, they talk about skills, they analyze how good a prospect is today and how his abilities will evolve over time. With high school seniors -- like Jeter in 1992 -- they talk about whether the prep star intends to play college baseball and how large a signing bonus he wants. The names of prospective draftees are listed on giant boards, the stock of some going up while others move down the board.

If you wanted a college player with speed, there was Jeffrey Hammonds, the outfielder from Stanford. Cal State-Fullerton's Phil Nevin could become a great hitter, they agreed, the type of player who might ascend quickly to the big leagues.

The distinguished scout from Michigan spoke of Jeter, of his skills and his personality, and said it might require $1 million to sign him -- a staggering bonus for that time. "No one is worth $1 million," said the 74-year-old scout, who pitched for a few thousand dollars a year in his day. "But if one kid is worth that, it's this kid."

The Parents Set the Foundation

To reinforce their reports on Jeter, this scout and others mentioned his parents: a great kid with great parents. Dorothy and Charles Jeter were always involved, Derek's former teachers say, always at the teacher-parent conferences, supportive of their suggestions, interested in their input. Derek Jeter called his 11th-grade teacher "Mrs. Padley," and so, too, did his parents.

"They have extremely strong values," said Padley. "They are some of the best parents I've ever seen."

Charles Jeter was raised in a single-parent home, with a mother who encouraged him and expected him to be accountable for the way he treated others; Dorothy Jeter's parents supported her endeavors, as well, and together, the Jeters believed in encouraging their two children. When Derek said he wanted to be the shortstop for the Yankees, they told him that with hard work, anything was possible, and sometimes the four of them would go in their backyard to practice -- Charles hitting ground balls, Derek fielding and throwing the ball to his younger sister, Sharlee, perhaps Dorothy pitching Wiffleball.

At the beginning of each school year, Charles and Dorothy Jeter sat down with a yellow legal pad and drew up a contract with Derek. They agreed to terms on grades, on sports, on extracurricular activities, on how to handle drugs, and the parents and their son would sign together.

Ace Adams, formerly the assistant baseball coach at the University of Michigan, said the Jeters were the best parents of any recruit he ever dealt with. Adams recalled how, after the Yankees drafted Derek, the teen-ager informed him daily of the progress of his contract negotiations, so that the Wolverines would be prepared to replace Jeter if he signed.

It was apparent to Adams that Derek Jeter was going to be a star, yet he and his parents never took Adams or the school for granted. Dorothy Jeter once asked Adams, "Are you sure Derek is good enough to play here?" Adams replied, "Mrs. Jeter, he could've started here when he was in the eighth grade."

Padley, Oosterban and Garzelloni all spoke of their belief that no matter how big a celebrity Jeter became, no matter how much money he made, he would be rooted. "Derek has a lot of things he's going to learn about people, and being in the eye of the public," said Padley. "But I believe he's going to remain a very decent human being."

Jeter could never change -- never let the success go to his head -- and get away with it, he said recently. "I couldn't go home. I'm no different than anybody else," Jeter said, except that he has a pretty good job.

He's still Derek from Kalamazoo, with the same friends from high school, friends who are scattered around the country now. Doug Biro, a friend from the fourth grade, stopped by the other day to have dinner with him in Tampa, Fla.

Shanti Lal, his friend from Mrs. Garzelloni's class, visited him in the minor leagues in Columbus, Ohio, and in spring training two years ago. They grew up together, laughed together; Derek and Shanti and another friend had entered a talent contest, the three of them, as the Jackson 5, with wigs and blue suits.

Lal planned to go to medical school, but on May 4, 1997, his sport utility vehicle rolled over on Interstate 94, and he was thrown from it and killed. Dorothy Jeter was the first to arrive at Evelyn Lal's house. Derek heard the news, and later, past midnight, he called home and spoke to his father. "I can't believe it," he said. "Shanti's gone."

In the midst of a baseball season, Jeter could not attend his friend's service, but he wrote a letter, and his sister read the words aloud, about his friendship with Shanti, how long they had known each other, all their shared experiences, their last days in Tampa together.

"Derek, he's a very good kid," Evelyn Lal said last week. "He is the type of kid I want my kids to be with, my Shanti."

A Decision, and a Resignation

The scout, who worked for the Houston Astros, got a phone call from his supervisor, Dan O'Brien, just before the '92 draft. O'Brien, then the scouting director for Houston, called to say the Astros planned to select Nevin with the first overall pick. "It's an organizational decision," O'Brien said.

The scout -- Hal Newhouser -- was "extremely disappointed," O'Brien recalled. Newhouser implored club officials to reconsider their decision. But the Astros drafted Nevin; Jeter fell into the hands of the Yankees, who had the sixth pick in the first round.

Newhouser began his baseball career in 1939 with the Detroit Tigers, at age 18, won 207 games and two Most Valuable Player awards and was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and in more than 50 years in the game, he had distinct tastes. He did not like Albert Belle, he decided. "I don't like his manners," he said once. "I don't like his attitude. As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't pay to see him play."

He liked Derek Jeter, everything about him. After the Astros picked Nevin instead of Jeter, Newhouser -- nearing retirement, anyway -- quit baseball in disgust. He died at age 78 last fall, a month after Jeter anchored the infield of history's most successful team, the foundation of two championships in his first three years in the majors.