Derek Jeter, whose No. 2 will be retired today, influenced Astros.
YANKEE SHORTSTOP'S INFLUENCE ECHOES THROUGH ASTROS CLUBHOUSE TO NEXT GENERATION OF PLAYERS
NEW YORK — Growing up in New Mexico, the only major league team Alex Bregman consistently rooted for was whichever team happened to be playing against the Yankees.
His mother, Jackie, a native of Long Island, N.Y., loved the Bronx Bombers, so Bregman and his younger siblings, sister Jessie and brother A.J., teased her by being contrarians. Their father, Sam, was in on the fun, too — he was raised in Maryland as a fan of the Baltimore Orioles, a longtime Yankees’ American League East foe.
But there was one important exception to Bregman’s anti-Yankees sentiment — Derek Jeter. Like countless others playing at all levels today, the 23-year-old Astros third baseman idolized “The Captain,” drawn in by his knack for performing in the clutch and incredible track record of winning. It’s no coincidence Bregman wears No. 2.
When the Yankees retire that uniform number and unveil Jeter’s plaque in the hallowed Monument Park on Sunday night, the home team and those in an expected raucous crowd will be far from the only ones in the building entranced by the moment. Jeter’s impact will be felt on the visitors’ side, too, as former teammates and opponents, but most of all as fans.
Astros shortstop Carlos Correa grew up trying to emulate the iconic Yankee shortstop’s signature jump throw. Bregman, a natural shortstop, did the same. First baseman and former middle infielder Yuli Gurriel, a Cuban defector, still cherishes his selection to the same alltournament team as Jeter at the end of the inaugural 2006 World Baseball Classic. Jeter is his idol, too, he said.
Twelve members of the Astros’ active roster played against Jeter before his retirement, as did two on their coaching staff — manager A.J. Hinch and bench coach Alex Cora. Outfielder Carlos Beltran and catcher Brian McCann were Jeter’s teammates in 2014, the last of the 14-time All-Star’s 20 seasons in pinstripes. McCann always will be able to say he was on deck for Jeter’s walkoff single in his final at-bat at Yankee Stadium.
“He was a role model for, I feel like, every kid that played shortstop growing up,” Correa said. “He played the game the right away, and obviously off the field, he was a great guy, as well. He never got into trouble. Your parents want you to follow a guy like him. You watched him play, and you fell in love with the way he played the game.” ‘Class and respect’
The Bregman family is so fond of Jeter that, seven or eight years ago, they named their white Labrador retriever after him. (Their brown lab is named Koufax.) As an LSU freshman, Bregman actually met Jeter at a tailgate before an LSU-Alabama football game, but only for a quick hello. He came into this weekend hoping Beltran would introduce him again on Sunday.
Correa also hoped to meet the Yankees’ all-time hits leader. Relief pitcher Chris Devenski, a shortstop through his junior college days, said he “wouldn’t even know what to say” if he was lucky enough to meet his favorite player on the team he grew up supporting.
Outfielder Josh Reddick will never forget the first time he reached second base in a game at Yankee Stadium as a rookie for the Boston Red Sox in 2009. He was just days removed from his debut, his first hit and his first home run. Jeter tapped the 22-year-old Reddick on the shoulder and congratulated him, adding that he had been watching.
“I was speechless,” Reddick recalled this week.
For all his fandom, Bregman saw Jeter play live in person
only once, at Arizona’s Chase Field against the Diamondbacks years ago, when in the area for travel ball. He remembers watching Jeter’s dramatic final at-bat at Yankee Stadium on television surrounded by about two dozen friends who had packed into his LSU dorm room.
“He was the captain on the field,” said Bregman, who regards the famous “flip play” in the 2001 ALDS at Oakland as Jeter’s best. “He went about his business the right away, and he was a winner.”
Hinch, the Astros’ thirdyear manager, has long held a personal affection for Jeter. The 42-year-old former major league catcher is the same age as the Yankees legend and graduated high school the same year. Their fathers became friendly while traveling the country to watch their sons play in high school all-star games and showcase events leading up to the 1992 draft.
Jeter signed out of high school that year — he was drafted sixth, five slots after the Astros took Phil Nevin, as has been well documented — while Hinch bypassed signing as a second-round pick to attend Stanford. They didn’t encounter each other again until April 1998, when, in Hinch’s second series as a big leaguer, his Athletics hosted the Yankees at Oakland’s Coliseum.
By that point Jeter had already become a superstar, having been the AL’s Rookie of the Year in 1996 and also winning the first of his five World Series titles. But during practice, he went out of his way to seek out Hinch and of- fer sympathy for the passing of Hinch’s father, who died of a heart attack when Hinch was a college freshman five years earlier.
That’s just class and respect for people,” Hinch said. “My dad and his dad weren’t best of friends. They were in touch a little bit. But it was a meaningful moment in my life, as I was watching him grow into a superstar in our game and I was breaking in.”
Paying homage
Although Hinch admittedly isn’t much of a collector, he keeps a bat autographed by Jeter in a case at his home. In September 2014, between leaving the San Diego Padres’ front office and joining the Astros as manager, he flew to New York and went to Yankee Stadium to watch Jeter play against the Tampa Bay Rays in one of the final home games of the shortstop’s career.
Early Sunday evening, before the second game of a doubleheader, Hinch will have his Astros out in the third-base dugout to witness the Jeter Day festivities. After the ceremony, no Yankee will be able to wear a single-digit uniform number again.
“There’s not a player on our team that won’t have respect for him based on what he did and how he did it,” Hinch said. “We’ll be on the top step, tipping our hats to him.”