from the New York Times

March 21, 1999

By BUSTER OLNEY

TAMPA, Fla. -- It is a testament to Derek Jeter that his peers will project his future greatness, estimate how big of a star he will become, or try to guess what his place in history will be. Baseball veterans typically frown on such conjecture, for their game is relentlessly demanding and challenging and they know almost all young players will wilt.

But peers are sure Jeter will be exceptional for a long, long time. The Yankees' shortstop will receive his second championship ring next month. He has averaged nearly 200 hits per season. He has finished third in the most valuable player balloting. He is among the game's most popular players. He is only 24 years old.

What will he be when he's 35? "An unbelievable star," said Darryl Strawberry. "He could be as big as Michael Jordan, because he's got a level head, he's a good kid, he knows how to play the game, he's not afraid, he's not intimidated and he's handsome as ever. And he's in New York."

Said Paul O'Neill: "He has a chance to be a Hall of Fame player. He's got that much time in his career, and that much talent."

That much talent, in all those things that make a star.

Tony Gwynn, the eight-time batting champion from the San Diego Padres, had a moment to pause at second base during the post-season last year and turned to Jeter. "You just keep doing what you do," Gwynn said.

Gwynn believes that Jeter has a terrific approach at the plate, that inside-out swing that allows Jeter to smash the ball through the right side or up the middle, with results. He averaged 192 hits a season in his first three full seasons, and clearly is improving -- he had 203 hits in only 149 games in 1998, batting .324. If Jeter remains healthy and plays another 14 seasons, averaging 190 hits a year, he would finish his career with approximately 3,250 hits.

Jeter does need to learn the strike zone better, the Yankees coach Willie Randolph said, and refine his aggressiveness. "If he does that," Randolph said, "that's scary."

Jeter had 119 strikeouts last year, but there is this: He batted .235 with two strikes, or 42 points higher than the league average in that situation, evidence of how Jeter cuts down his swing and tries to put the ball in play. "It's an old-fashioned approach to hitting,"" said Joe Torre, the Yankees manager.

Jeter is not muscular like Jose Canseco or Mark McGwire; he doesn't have the steel-mill chest. But he is very strong -- last year, Jeter became the first right-handed hitter in the history of Yankee Stadium to hit the ball in the upper deck in right field, and he and Strawberry and Bernie Williams probably hit the most home runs in batting practice.

"He doesn't realize what kind of power he has," Strawberry said. "Being a home run hitter is a natural thing, and he has the natural ability to hit home runs. He has a natural swing for becoming a 30-home run hitter. He's going to get stronger each year."

Said one American League scout: "You see him learning how to pull the ball more and more, and when he does, he'll hit 30 to 40 home runs a year."

Jeter has the quickness and the speed to steal bases, and he's gaining the requisite knowledge. Jose Cardenal, the Yankees' first base coach, thinks that as soon as Jeter acquires confidence in his base running -- fearlessness -- he will steal 40 to 50 a year, "or maybe more."

Cardenal remembered how in his rookie year, Jeter was thrown out stealing third in a situation where he shouldn't have been running; the fallout made Jeter more cautious.

"He can't be worried about making a mistake," Cardenal said. "Even when the other team thinks he's going to go, he's got to go, anyway -- just develop that attitude."

Jeter increased his stolen bases from 14 to 23 to 30 in his first three years, and intends to run more.

Jeter gained the consistency the Yankees wanted from him, reducing his errors to nine last year; he did not make his first throwing error until June 20. To Kansas City Manager Tony Muser and others, Jeter already ranks among the game's best shortstops.

"I think he can get better," said Randolph, who is the infield coach. But, he added that Jeter has developed more quickly than he expected. "He still needs to learn to anticipate a little better, to get a little bit better jump," Randolph said.

Last season, Jeter curbed a habit of shuffling forward and to his right slightly as a pitch was made, and he was in better position to make more plays. With greater anticipation -- understanding the hitters, understanding how they will hit the ball on certain counts -- Randolph thinks Jeter will get to more balls, to his left, in particular, and to his right.

"I've always been a consistency guy," Randolph said. "You've got to show me more than two or three years. How is he going to be in lean years? How would he be with a different manager? I don't anticipate fall-off with him, because he's a hard worker, but every spring I try to challenge him and say, 'You've got to take it to the next level.' "

Jeter played alongside Don Mattingly for just a few weeks at the end of the 1995 season, but Mattingly left Jeter a keepsake. At a time when the Yankees held spring training in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Jeter and Mattingly finished a workout on a back field one afternoon, all alone. Some of their teammates were playing an exhibition game, others already were done for the day, and now Mattingly and Jeter were headed back to the clubhouse, as well. The stadium was completely empty; there was nobody around -- no fans, no coaches, no one except for two exhausted, sweating ballplayers.

"Let's run in," Mattingly told Jeter. "You never know who's watching."

Jeter remembers vividly how they ran back to the clubhouse, side-by-side, through the empty ball park, just because it was the right thing to do.

Mattingly was a captain, perhaps the player most responsible for creating the intensely professional and respectful culture that has been cultivated in the Yankees' clubhouse -- and Jeter likely will be the keeper of the flame for years to come, as Torre and pitcher David Cone and many others believe.

"He's not intimidated by any situation," catcher Joe Girardi said, "and to be a leader, you have to be like that. He's well respected. He's able to make light of a lot of situations, to keep guys relaxed."

Last September, when pitcher David Wells gestured disgustedly after JJeter and two others let pop-up fall between them, Jeter yelled to Wells from his position that, hey, that kind of stuff isn't acceptable on this team -- a 24-year-old lecturing a 10-year veteran, and in the mind of others on the club, Jeter said exactly what needed to be said at precisely the right time. Jeter naturally pulls in some of the fringe personalities on the team: he gave a nickname to Hideki Irabu, the only Yankee who speaks his own language, and he is friends with the shy and reserved Ramiro Mendoza. "He doesn't push himself on people, or claim a leadership role," Cone said. "It just sort of happens."

Like his fellow shortstops Nomar Garciaparra and Alex Rodriguez, Jeter is already among the game's most recognizable figures, one of its symbols of excellence. "He's exactly what baseball needs, a young player, talented, who really, he communicates exactly what this sport is," said Bud Selig, baseball's commissioner.

Steve Rosner, an executive vice president for Integrated Sports International, a company that deals in marketing, says that so long as Jeter stays with the Yankees and the Yankees continue to be successful, Jeter could develop into the city's biggest Madison Avenue star "in a couple of decades, since Reggie."

Jeter, too, has a chance to be the first athlete to achieve a $200 million contract, now that basketball has a salary cap. He could be a free agent at age 27, before the prime of his career.

"It's a remarkable start to his career," Cone said. "There's no reason to believe he can't be in the upper echelon of all-time great Yankee players."