The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter Read Online Free PDF Page B

roots.
    “I thought that definitely had something to do with it,” agreed Derek, who batted .557 and hit 7 homers as a junior.
    Though Jeter was clearly the best player in his district, it was hard to believe a disjointed group of high school coaches secretly conspired against him, especially because the state’s coaches association would name Derek its player of the year the following season.
    Much more likely, said Paul Morgan, the
Kalamazoo Gazette
sportswriter close to the Jeter family, the snub was the byproduct of Central’s poor record and the fact that many district coaches did not see Derek play in person.
    But the Jeters had their reasons to see ghosts where there were none. If nothing else, they refused to allow other people’s ignorance to define who they were or what they would do.
    Derek kept a 3.82 grade-point average as a senior, when he was considered the best high school ballplayer in the land. Surrounded by his trophies and plaques in his home, Jeter was asked by Morgan to name the award that made him most proud.
    Derek immediately pointed to his eighth-grade math certificate. “I worked my butt off for that one,” he said.
    He was a member of the National Honor Society, a reliable tutor for freshmen lagging behind in their computer lab, and an A student in Sally Padley’s fast-tracking British lit class who would draw himself in a coat of arms (as a Yankee on one side, a Central basketball player on the other) that was among the best drawings Padley had ever received.
    Jeter had everything going for him: An arm so strong he would break the webbing of his first baseman’s glove on a critical (and accurate) throw, costing his Maroons a trip to the Connie Mack World Series after hitting two long home runs in that very game. A confidence so unwavering he would take the big jump shots for the Blues, and for Clarence Gardner and Don Jackson at Central.
    A heart so compassionate he would start a collection for a Central basketball teammate who had been arrested and could not afford a lawyer. As captain of the team, Jeter persuaded Gardner’s wife to contribute $350 to the fund on the promise he would personally reimburse her—a promise he kept.
    Derek’s Midas touch knew no bounds. The shortstop with the Dave Winfield poster on his wall had Division I college coaches and major league scouts attending his games. The Yankee fan born twenty-eight miles from the historic ball yard in the Bronx had piqued the Yankees’ interest. The pragmatist with the honors certificates displayed as prominently as his athletic trophies had pre-med possibilities lined up in the event baseball did not work out.
    The baseball star with the steady high school sweetheart, Marisa Novara, also had fallback marriage plans in place. He was not just telling everyone he would become the shortstop for the New York Yankees—why stop there?
    Jeter made another prediction to his summer coach, Courtney Jasiak, while they were working out in an indoor hitting loft, and to his summer teammate, Chad Casserly, while they were having a warm-up catch in the outfield.
    “I’m going to marry Mariah Carey one day,” Derek told them.
    This was Jeter’s vision of love, and it would have to wait. His vision of professional baseball needed to unfold first.

2. The Draft
    On the morning of June 1, 1992, Julian Mock stepped out of his Cincinnati hotel and went on a three-mile run that would dramatically alter the course of baseball history. Mock was the Reds official who would make the fifth overall pick in that day’s major league amateur draft, and he had two prospects in mind when he started his jog: Chad Mottola, an outfielder for the University of Central Florida; and Derek Jeter, a shortstop for Kalamazoo Central High School.
    Mock was not sure if either player would be available at number 5, as baseball executives often did all they could to cloak their true draft-day intentions. But Mock knew his scouts loved Jeter, and he knew the big