Jeter ready for Hall experience
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – Derek Jeter visited Cooperstown when he was a kid nearly four decades ago and says he doesn’t remember much about the trip. He’s returning this week and likely won’t ever forget even one moment.
After a delay of well over a year, the former New York Yankees shortstop and captain will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday along with fellow class of 2020 members Ted Simmons, Larry Walker, and the late Marvin Miller, whose efforts on the labor front changed the game.
Last year’s ceremony was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Nobody was selected from this year’s writers’ ballot and the Hall of Fame’s Era committees postponed their scheduled elections until the upcoming offseason because of the pandemic.
“As strange as this sounds or may sound, I’m trying not to think about it,” the 47-year-old Jeter, now an owner and CEO of the Miami Marlins, said last week. “I just want to go there and experience it. I’m trying to keep it out of my mind because I do want to go in there with no preconceived notions of what may happen. I want to experience it and try to enjoy it. It’s been a long time coming.”
In 2007, the inductions of Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn drew an estimated record crowd of 82,000 to the expansive grass field at the Clark Sports Center on the outskirts of this one-stoplight village in upstate New York. When the wildly popular Jeter was elected in January 2020 that record figured to be in jeopardy because fans had been booking reservations well in advance. With a mid-week ceremony instead of the traditional Sunday afternoon, school back in session and the threat of inclement weather the Hall of Fame wasn’t offering an attendance prediction.
The deaths of eight Hall of Famers over the past year and a half, including Hank Aaron and Yankees star Whitey Ford, and the lingering pandemic have limited the number of returning Hall of Famers to 31. Two years ago a record 58 showed up.
The 72-year-old Simmons, a star catcher and first baseman in the 1970s and 1980s for the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers, found a silver lining in the long wait.
“The wait has been good and bad – bad in that you’ve had to wait an extra year for this thing to kind of come to a head, but good in that it’s extended an additional year,” said Simmons, who grew up just outside Detroit. “It’s been such a difficult time for everybody here in the last two years, all over the country, in the workforce, in society in general with this pandemic. The fact that it’s now going to happen just brings us closer to some normalcy, which we’re all hoping for.”
Jeter was the 57th player elected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on the first try. He was one vote shy of becoming the second unanimous pick, named on 396 of the 397 votes cast.
His former Yankees teammate, ace reliever Mariano Rivera, remains the only one.