Derek Jeter went 1-for-4 Thursday night, pushing his hit total to 2,990. He is now 10 hits away from becoming the first player in the history of the New York Yankees to get 3,000 hits. The Yankees have seven games left on their current homestand, four with the Cleveland Indians and three with the Texas Rangers.
If you have read Ian O'Connor's book about Jeter, titled 'The Captain,' you may know much of the back story behind how Jeter was scouted and how he fell to the Yankees. If you haven't you can get a little bit of the flavor of it by reading MLB.com's interview with Dick Groch, who scouted Jeter before the Yankees drafting him sixth overall in 1992.
Groch recognized an aura of leadership in the prospect.
"It's the difference between going to the Kentucky Derby and the state fair," Groch said. "When you see Secretariat, it takes your breath away. It's the same intangibles ... the relaxation, the fact that he believes in himself, that he doesn't understand there's such a thing as failure. It doesn't exist."