Few people on this planet can honestly say they have lived a charmed life. Derek Jeter is among them. He has functioned at the epicenter of New York sports for a decade, yet has none of the bruising and scars that are typically part of that package. What he does have are four World Series rings, a Hall of Fame resume, and the respect and admiration of even his baseball enemies. They say that Derek has gotten all the breaks, and to a degree he has. But the biggest breaks have always been the ones he has made for himself. This is his story…

GROWING UP

Derek Sanderson Jeter was born June 26, 1974 in Pequannock, New Jersey. The first of two kids—he has a sister, Sharlee—Derek grew up in a sports-crazy home. For quite some time a story circulated that his parents, Dorothy and Charles, named him after a hockey star, Derek Sanderson, the dynamic forward of the Boston Bruins. Derek says that isn't true. He was named after his grandfather, Sanderson Charles Jeter.

Charles was an alcohol- and drug-abuse counselor. Dorothy worked as an accountant. The family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan when Derek was four so his father could complete his masters at Western Michigan. Detroit was only a couple of hours away from where the Jeters lived, and Charles often took his son to Tiger games. Derek, however, never changed his baseball allegiance. He loved the New York Yankees. His favorite player was Dave Winfield.

Derek and Sharlee spent their summers with their grandparents, Dot and Bill Connors, at their West Milford home in Bergen County, NJ. With the Yanks just on the other side of the George Washington Bridge, Derek pictured himself in pinstripes as he played with his friends and visiting cousins. Dot was his personal catcher. They would sometimes don their gloves and start throwing before breakfast.

Derek adored baseball. He dreamed of playing professionally, and even predicted in a school essay that he would one day suit up as the shortstop of the Yankees. The genetics were in his favor—Charles had been a shortstop for Fisk University and a cousin, Gary Jeter, logged several good years as a lineman with the New York Giants.

Derek was a spectacularly well-adjusted child. Thanks to a quick mind, easy manner, and the self- confidence his parents built up in him, his bad days were few and far between. He succeeded at just about everything he tried. The product of a bi-racial couple, Derek turned a potentially tricky situation into a positive—instead of trying to fit into one group or another, he simply felt that he could get along with anyone.

Derek’s athletic prowess was clear by the time he started his Little League career. His parents encouraged him in sports, and let him set his own goals. They provided the boundaries, reminding him that if his academics suffered, baseball was off the board.

Derek kept his part of the bargain, bringing home good report cards and maintaining an A-minus average once he entered Kalamazoo Central High School. He also blossomed as an all-around athlete, reaching 6-3 and competing at the varsity level in basketball by age 14. As a sophomore point guard, he hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to beat rival Portage Central—still among his fondest sports memories. As a shortstop, Derek drew comparisons to Cal Ripken. He was big, he could hit, and even as a freshman, his arm was powerful enough to make throws from the hole.

By his junior year, Derek was at the top of a lot of scouting and recruiting lists. He batted .557 and slugged seven homers, despite seeing only a couple of decent pitches a game. As a senior, Derek slipped in a slush puddle rounding first during his opening game, and nursed an ankle injury much of the year. He saw even less to swing at, but still hit .508 and averaged an RBI per game. He was also a perfect 12-for-12 in steals. Derek was named the 1992 High School Player of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association, and was offered a full scholarship to the University of Michigan.

Derek had his heart set on going pro. It was difficult to predict how he would fare in the draft, because the Michigan high school baseball season is short, and the competition he faced was not consistently strong. In March and April, scouts were calling coach Don Zomer to get a feel for how Derek’s campaign was progressing, only to be told that he was shoveling snow off the field with his teammates. In Derek’s favor was the fact that the '92 draft was not considered to be a strong one. He and his parents felt a first-round pick was well within the realm of possibility.

The Astros chose first, and almost called Derek’s name. They went with Cal State Fullerton star Phil Nevin instead. Houston’s head scout was so upset by the decision that he later resigned. Three more teams passed over Derek. When Cincinnati prepared for its turn in the fifth slot, he waited with some dread. Though a big fan of Barry Larkin, he did not want to be the heir apparent to the former Michigan star. His beloved Yankees owned the draft's next selection, and Derek held his breath in anticipation of joining the Bronx Bombers.

New York rarely used its first-round choice on a high-school player, and Derek knew it. He had not communicated with the Yankee prior to the draft, so he had no sense of whether he was even on the team's radar screen. But the pinstripers’ brain trust believed Derek was the perfect young player to help reconstruct a winning tradition that had suffered greatly during the late 1980s and early '90s. When the phone rang and Dorothy was told the Yanks wanted to talk to Derek, she handed the receiver to the happiest boy on the planet.

ON THE RISE

Derek signed for $700,000 (plus a promise to pick up the tab for his college education if he suffered a career-ending injury) and went right to work. He required fine-tuning more than anything else on defense—his mechanics were already perfect. He blew the occasional easy chance, but that was more a matter of focus than skill. Most of the Derek's tutelage came at the pate, where he was schooled on the art of hitting to all fields. Different pitches in different locations required different swings, and the quicker he learned to react, the faster he would reach the majors. The inside-out stroke Derek applied to pitches high and tight came in handy here, as he already had a way to keep enemy pitchers from moving him off the plate. His knowledge of the strike zone was better than many of their older prospects. He was a .300 hitter in the making.

Although Derek took to the hitting instruction well in practice, translating it to games could be problematic.He struggled around .200 all summer in 1992, and let his hitting affect his fielding, booting 21 balls in 58 games at stops with New York’s rookie-level team in Tampa and later with Greensboro Hornets. Manager Gary Denbo assured him this was all fundamental stuff, easily fixed through repetition.

Denbo was correct. In 1993, Derek’s first full year in pro ball, he had a smashing season for Greensboro. He batted .295 with 30 extra-base hits and 71 RBIs, and was named the South Atlantic League’s top shortstop and second-best prospect. Derek’s teammates on the Hornets included Mariano Rivera, Ramiro Mendoza and Shane Spencer.

The only cause for concern was Derek’s defense. He committed 56 errors, the third-worst mark in all of pro baseball. Many of these miscues came on plays other shortstop wouldn’t have even tried, however. Derek could do a jump-and-throw from the hole, gun guys out from his knees, and one-hand slow rollers. Still, he was not making the easy plays consistently enough. About halfway through the season (when Derek’s error total had already soared past 30), Gene Michael paid him a visit. He told Derek that as a shortstop in the Pittsburgh system during the 1960s, he had slogged through three 50-plus error campaigns in a row. He also advised him that the secret was to find that place between being relaxed in the field and being careless—his comfort zone. Derek was a different player after that.

Derek opened spring training of 1994 in the major league camp. Still a teenager, he found himself fielding grounders next to Wade Boggs and firing throws across the infield to Don Mattingly. After rubbing elbows with the All-Stars, Derek was reassigned to Tampa of the Florida State League. In 69 games he stroked the ball at a .329 clip, in a league traditionally tough on young hitters. He also amassed 28 steals. Derek was bumped up to Class-AA Albany in June, and he continued to sting the ball, batting .377 in 34 games. He finished the year at Class-AAA Columbus, posting a .349 batting average.

Derek might have found himself in New York that summer, had a strike not ended the season. Playing at three levels, he wound up hitting .344, with 43 extra-base hits and 50 steals in 55 attempts. Derek was named Minor League Player of the Year by Baseball America, The Sporting News, Baseball Weekly and Topps—as well as Florida State League MVP.

In 1995, Derek did make it to the show, joining the Yankee roster briefly during an All-Star campaign with Columbus. He probably could have spent the whole year in pinstripes, but management wanted to give him at least another season in the minors, so veteran Tony Fernandez was signed to man shortstop. Meanwhile, Derek batted .317 with 27 doubles and nine triples in 123 games with the Clippers, and led the International League in runs scored with 96. Derek’s first taste of the bigs came in May, when Fernandez went on the DL. He returned for the September stretch run, as the Yankees snagged the Wild Card, reaching the post-season for the first time since 1981. Derek did not see much action his second time around, but hit .250 overall in 15 games.

The 1996 season opened as planned for the Yankees, with Derek as their everyday shortstop. The team’s new manager, Joe Torre, assured him that Fernandez was now a sub and starting the job was his to lose. Then Derek went out and almost lost it, looking nervous all spring. He finally relaxed when Fernandez broke his elbow in the final week of the exhibition season.

Before the opener against the Indians in Cleveland, Torre reiterated to Derek that he just had to make the routine plays on defense—the Yankees would be patient with the rest of his game. So of course, Derek had one of the most memorable Opening Days in team history, becoming the first Yankee rookie to homer in the season's first game in 25 years. He also flagged down a ball to shallow left to complete a highlight-reel catch. Derek’s teammates loved the way he took charge at shortstop on that ball, and sensed they had a special player in their midst.

And as things developed, the '96 Yankees were a very special team. Andy Pettitte, a teammate of Derek’s in the minors, led an otherwise veteran starting staff with 21 wins. The everyday lineup featured good, hard-nosed players, including Tino Martinez, Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams and Boggs. Mariano Duncan, who had a career year at the plate, was Derek’s DP partner. New York edged the Orioles in the AL East, fought off a hard-hitting Texas team in the Divisional Series, and beat Baltimore in five games to take the ALCS.

All Derek did in ‘96 was hit .314 (.350 in the second half) with 104 runs scored. He handled himself marvelously in the field, and was everyone’s pick for Rookie of the Year. In his first taste of playoff baseball, Derek hit .412 against the Rangers, and was even better against the Orioles, batting .417. In Game 1 of the ALCS, Derek drove an opposite field homer to tie the game. This was the famous ball that Jeffrey Maier snatched away from Tony Tarasco. New York won the contest in 11 innings. In Game 5, Derek made a diving stop on a grounder by Cal Ripken to record the pennant-winning out.

Derek’s first of many World Series was a classic. The Braves won the first two in Yankee Stadium, Jim Leyritz homered off Mark Wohlers to score a comeback in Game 3 in Atlanta, and then the Yanks swept the next three to win it all. Against one of history’s most formidable pitching staffs, Derek reached base nine times in 24 plate appearances and scored a team-high five runs.

Derek did everything right again in 1997, batting .291, with 190 hits, 23 steals and 116 runs. He became more patient at the plate, and was automatic on grounders in the field. The Yanks lost a close race to Baltimore, but qualified for the playoffs as the Wild Card. Derek had a great divisional series against the Cleveland Indians, and the Yanks seemed to be on their way to another ALCS showdown with the O’s, when Cleveland engineered a brilliant comeback to win Games 4 and 5 and send the Yankees packing. Everyone remembers Sandy Alomar’s game-tying homer off Rivera in Game 4 of this series, but Derek thinks back to the winning single an inning later, which eluded him by only a couple of inches after glancing off of Mendoza’s glove.

Derek came into his own in 1998 at the age of 24. He topped the league with 127 runs, collected 204 hits, batted .324, and slugged .481. His numbers were terrific across the board, and he played in his first All-Star game. The Yankees cruised to the AL East crown with 114 wins. Newcomers Scott Brosius and Chuck Knoblauch had good seasons, as did Jorge Posada, who took over regular catching duties. Williams claimed the batting title and David Cone led the AL with 20 wins at age 35. This was a team greater than the sum of its parts.

The Yankees smothered Texas in the ALDS and survived a momentary scare against the Indians in the championship series. Derek did not really have it going in these two series, though he delivered the key hit in Game 6 against the Tribe, a two-run triple to salt the contest away. He rediscovered it against the Padres in the Fall Classic, batting .353 in New York’s four-game sweep of San Diego.

The 1999 Yankees battled injuries and inconsistency, and struggled to win at times. Derek and his mates made a concerted effort to work enemy pitchers more, so they could get into their opponents’ bullpens. This strategy probably spelled the difference in a tight race with the Boston Red Sox, who finished four games out. The big difference was supposed to be Rogers Clemens, but he was not his dominant self in ’99. Instead, Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez led the staff, with Rivera doing his usual brilliant job as closer.

Derek kept pushing the ceiling, leading the league with 219 hits and barely missing the batting title, finishing at .349 to Nomar Garciaparra’s .357. He knocked in 100 runs for the first time, drew 91 walks and also scored 134 runs.

Facing the Rangers again in the Division Series, Derek pace all hitters with a .455 average to power a Yankee sweep. He was also the top New York hitter against the Red Sox in the ALCS, batting .350 in a five-game victory. Against the Braves in the World Series, Derek hit .353 as New York routed Atlanta for its second straight world championship.

MAKING HIS MARK

Derek was the key man in the Yankees’ quest for a third straight title in 2000. Age was creeping up on the team, and Torre had to juggle his lineup quite a bit. Derek, however, was Mr. Dependable, at his best day in and day out, batting .339 with 119 runs scored, and playing exceptional defense. He went 3-for-3 in the All-Star Game and walked off with the MVP trophy. He got the start when his friend Alex Rodriguez was hurt and could not suit it.

In the second half, New York pulled away from the Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays to capture the AL East. They cut it close, losing their last seven, and everyone was predicting the end of the Yankee dynasty. In the playoffs against the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners, they dropped a pair of openers but came back to win 3-2 and 4-2, respectively.

Meanwhile, south of Yankee Stadium, the Mets shocked their NL foes to earn a World Series berth themselves. This set up the long-awaited rebirth of the Subway Series—a spectacle unseen in the city since 1956.

Derek was center stage in the ultimate New York sporting event. In Game 1, he snuffed out a Met rally when he executed a ballet-like relay to cut down Timo Perez at the plate. The Yankees won 4-3 in 12 innings. Derek collected three hits in Game 2, another one-run victory of the Yanks. The Mets took the third game, and Torre shook up his lineup by moving Derek from the two-hole to the leadoff spot for Game 4. On the first pitch of the evening, Derek lined a Bobby Jones fastball over the fence. He later tripled and scored the game-winning run in yet another slim victory.

The Derek Jeter Show continued the next evening, as he erased a 2-1 Met lead with a solo homer. The Yankees went on to win 4-2. Derek was named MVP of the World Series.

Coming off a third straight championship, the Yankees did what they do best—opened their wallet and got better. Mike Mussina was signed to bolster the starting staff, Knoblauch was moved into the outfield, and Alfonso Soriano was promoted to the starting slot at second base. Derek worked relatively well with his dynamic new DP partner, who was a converted shortstop. Early in the year Soriano was not smooth on the pivot, but as he got used to second this problem was ironed out. For Derek, a sore right shoulder and a nagging hamstring strain kept him below 100 percent all season. Though uncharacteristically impatient in the batter’s box, he finished at .311 with 21 homers and 110 runs scored. The Yankees easily outdistanced the Red Sox in the AL East, after injuries to Pedro Martinez and Garciaparra left the Boston lineup a shambles.

The season was notable, of course, for the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks. No one seemed to care much about baseball in New York after that, especially the Yankees. Against the A’s in the playoffs, they could not solve Oakland’s starting pitching. Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson shut them down in the opening games at Yankee Stadium, and a promising campaign stained with unfathomable misery appeared to be over.

In Game 3, in Oakland, Barry Zito had the Yanks on the ropes. New York managed to eke out a run against the eccentric lefty, and Derek later preserved the lead by racing across the infield to scoop up an errant outfield throw on a Terrence Long double, which he backhanded to Posada in time to nip Jeremy Giambi at the plate. Rivera came on in the eighth for the save, and the Yankees were back in business. The New York bats finally awoke against Cory Lidle, as the club evened the series with a 9-2 victory. In the deciding game, back in New York, the Yankees completed their comeback by beating Mulder 5-3. Derek proved to be one of the few consistent hitters against the A’s, batting .444. It was his marvelous defensive play, however, that provided the indelible moment of the series.

Next up were the Mariners, winners of a league-record 116 games. Pettitte and Mussina tamed the potent Seattle lineup to stake New York to a 2-0 series lead. After El Duque got roughed up in Game 3, Clemens and Pettitte wrapped up the pennant with two great performances.

The winners in the National League were the Diamondbacks, a team that barely won its division. Arizona was set up for the post-season, however, with stud starters Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, and a lineup of veterans including Steve Finley, Mark Grace, Matt Williams, Luis Gonzalez and Tony Womack. The World Series opened in Phoenix, with Schilling and Johnson turning in phenomenal performances. Soft-throwing Brian Anderson nearly made it 3-0 with a fine performance in New York, but weird baserunning and shoddy defense undid the D-Backs, and Clemens won 2-1.

Game 4 was a classic, with Arizona ahead 3-1 with two outs in the ninth. Tino Martinez tied the game with a dramatic home run off Byung-Hyun Kim, and Derek ended it an inning later with a walk-off clout. The next night, the Yankees burned Kim again. This time Scott Brosius hit a game-tying homer with two out in the ninth, and New York prevailed in 12.

The series moved back to Arizona, where Johnson won Game 6 as a starter and Game 7 as a reliever. The Yankees went into the ninth with a 2-1 lead and Rivera on the mound—normally an automatic victory. With a man on first, Arizona bunted and Rivera threw wildly to second. Derek, thinking double play, had his weight shifting away from the throw, and could not recover in time to prevent the ball from sailing into the outfield. Womack doubled in the tying run, and then Gonzalez blooped a single over Derek’s head for the win. It was the final frustration in a series that saw him bat a meager .148, and produce little other than his one game-winning hit.

For 2002, the Yankees featured a drastically new look. Gone were Martinez, Brosius and O’Neill. New to the club were reigning MVP Jason Giambi, Rondell White and Robin Ventura. Young Nick Johnson got some time spelling Giambi at first and DH-ing, while David Wells rejoined the team. Later in the year, trades brought Jeff Weaver and Raul Mondesi to New York. The Yankees cruised to another division title, bolstered by 19 wins from Wells, a big year by Williams, and a near 40-40 season from Soriano. Torre employed less small ball with this more powerful lineup, but he turned Derek loose for 32 steals. His other numbers were solid, with a .297 average, 18 homers and 124 runs scored.

The Yankees went into the post-season expecting an ALCS showdown with the A’s. But they never got out of the Division Series. Anaheim torched New York's pitching, scoring 31 runs to advance in four games. Derek was magnificent, hitting .500 with a pair of homers. But the Angels batted .376 as a team, pounding the ball in both ballparks

The 2003 Yankees won 100-plus games for the second straight year, and outdistanced the Red Sox once again in the AL East. This year, however, Torre had to work through multiple problems, including a shaky bullpen and injuries to Giambi, Williams, Johnson and Derek, who separated his shoulder sliding head-first into third base in the season opener against the Blue Jays. He returned six weeks later, and grimaced through a campaign that saw him finish third in the AL batting race with a .324 average. He would have traded a few points of that average for a better year in the field, where he never really looked comfortable.

The Yankees got it together by the post-season and rolled over the Twins. Derek batted .429 to lead the team against Minnesota. In an epic ALCS against the Red Sox, the Yankees rallied against Pedro Martinez in Game 7 and claimed their sixth pennant in eight seasons.

The World Series pitted the Yanks against the impetuous Florida Marlins. New York fans were expecting a cakewalk, but Juan Pierre and Brad Penny starred for the Fish in a 3-2 opening-game win—the first World Series loss at home for the Yanks since 1996. The Bombers took the next two easily, but Florida grabbed the next three games for a shocking series victory. The old pinstripe magic seemed to be fading.

This appeared to be the case in 2004, when the Yankees nearly blew a big lead over the Red Sox in the AL East, and then fell to Boston in the ALCS, entering the history books after blowing a 3-0 series advantage. Derek had the worst start of his career, and was actually booed at one point by the hometown fans. But he heated up over the summer and finished with a .292 average, 23 homers and 11 runs scored. He also collected his first Gold Glove, adding yet another award to his trophy case.

Derek had two new infield mates—Miguel Cairo at second and Alex Rodrigeuz at third. A-Rod, a good friend since they first met as uber prospects in 1993, was acquired in a trade for Soriano. There was much conjecture in the press how these two star shortstops would co-exist on the left side, especially because Rodriguez was the reigning Gold Glover at that position. A-Rod knew he was now playing in Derek's yard, and smartly moved to the hot corner.

The Yankee offense—powered by Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui and free agent Gary Sheffield—led the league with 242 home runs, but the starting pitching and middle relief were scary-bad at times. It all caught up with them in the post-season.

In 2005, the Yankees focused on fortifying their staff, adding hurlers Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano and Jared Wright to a rotation that already included Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown. So of course, the problem for most of the year was their pitching. The New York offense sputtered at times, too, creating a first half marked by dramatic (and very un-Yankeelike ups and downs).

The assumption every year is that, one way or another, the Yanks will find a way to make the playoffs, and give a good account of themselves once they are there. Every year, however, could potentially be the one that breaks this remarkable string of successes. When it does, there will be acrimony and finger-pointing and all of the other unpleasantness that accompanies too big a payroll and not enough wins.

Derek is an attacking hitter at heart, but has shown patience when he needs to. As he transitions into the final years of his career, it will be interesting to see how he adjusts to the way opponents throw to him. He is as clutch as they comes, and uses the whole field, with excellent power to right. It would not be out of the question for Derek to become more of a home run threat if that is what the Yankees need.

In the field, Derek may have lost a half-step on his first step, but he makes up for that with positioning and overall aggressiveness. His leaping catch of a Trot Nixon foul ball, which took him headlong into the stands against the Red Sox in 2004, became an instant classic. His patented jump-throw on balls in the hole is still amazing to watch.

Derek has been one of the fastest righthanded hitters to first in baseball for many years, and a good base stealer. With another club in another situation, he might have 500 steals at this stage of his career. The key is that he always hustles, even on routine grounders right at infielders. His instincts and knowledge of opponents as a baserunner are uncanny.

Is Derek a Hall of Famer? When you watch him play every day, you wonder why anyone would ask. He may not have the gaudy statistics of A-Rod, Tejada and other modern guys, but his numbers are exceptional, he has a handful of rings to flash at the induction ceremony, and the intangibles he brings to the Yankees in the form of leadership are acknowledged by everyone in the game.