The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Jeter, Walker elected to baseball Hall of Fame
NEW YORK >> Derek Jet er came within one vote of being a unanimous pick for the Hall of Fame while Larry Walker also earned baseball’ s highest honor Jan .21. The long time Yankees captain appeared on 396 of 397 ballots cast by the Base-ball Writers’ Association of America, falling just shy of the standard set when long-time Yankees teammate Mari-a no Rivera became thefir st unanimous selection last year. Jet er’ s 99.7% moved above Ken Gr if fey Jr .(99.3%) for the second-highest .“I was speech less when I got the call ,” Jet er said .“Quite frankly, I was pretty nervous, and when I got it I really didn’ t know what to say .” It was not immediately known which voter didn’ t choose Jet er, who was listed on all 219 ballots made pub-lic before the announcement. The BB WA A will release addi-tional ballot son Feb .4 of writ-ers who chose a public listing .“I don’ t like to jinx any-thing ,” Jet er said .“No one as-sumes they’ re going to goto the Hall of Fame .” Walker appeared on 304 ballots, six above the 75% needed, up from 54.6% last year. He was making his 10 thandfin al appearance on the BB WA A ballot and tweeted earlier in the day“I believe I’ m going to come up a little short today .” Pitcher Cu rt Schilling was third with 278 votes (70%) in his eighth ballot appearance, an increase from 60.9% but still 20 votes shy. The steroids-tainted pair of Roger Clemens (61%) and Barry Bonds (60.7%) both showed slight increases. Bonds rose from 59.1% last year and Clemens from 59.5%. Jet er and Walker will be in-ducted on July 26 at the Hall in Coopers town along with catch er Ted Simmons and for-mer players’ association head Marvin Miller, who were voted in last month by the Hall’ s Modern Era Committee. A five-time World Series champion, Jet er became a face of baseball ashes tarred in the nation’ s largest me-dia market from 1995-2014. He was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1996 as the Yankees won the WorldS eriesfo rt hefir st time since 1978, then led New York to three straight ti-tles from 1998-2000, the only team to accomplish the feat since the 1972-74 Athletics. There built Yankees added their 27 th title in 2009
Jet er defined himself by moments more than numbers: his unexpected backhand flip from foul territory to throw out Oakland’s Jeremy Giambi in the 2001 AL Division Series; his Mr. November home run in the 10th inning that won Game 4 of the 2001 World Series; his face-first leap into the stands after catching a 12 th-inning pop up by Boston’ s Trot Nixon in 2004; a home run into the left-field bleachers for his 3,000th hit as part of a career-best 5-for-5 game in 2011; a ninth-inning walkoff single in his final home game in 2014; a single in his last at-bat three days later that lifted his career average to .310.
Drafted sixth overall in 1992 after he was spotted by Yankees scout Dick Grouch as a high school junior a year earlier, Jeter was bypassed by Houston (Phil Nevin), Cleveland (Paul Shuey), Montreal (B.J. Wallace), Baltimore (Jeffrey Hammonds) and Cincinnati (Chad Mottola). He debuted for the Yankees on May 29, 1995, and was installed at shortstop the folliowing spring training by new manager Joe Torre.
Jeter became a 14-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove winner despite defensive metrics that were maligned.He was appointed captain by owner George Stein brenner in June 2003, filling a position that had been open since Don Mattingly’s retirement after the 1995 season. He finished with 3,465 hits, 260 homers, 358 stolen bases and 1,311 RBI, earning $266 million from the Yankees.