Derek Jeter, Mr. Consistency, Reaches 3,000 Hits

Ten years ago, my dad gave me an extremely unique present, a Derek Jeter bobble head doll. Having grown up as purely Philadelphia fans, I was confused as to why my dad would give me anything that had to do with New York, let alone their all-star shortstop. His explanation was simple, “If you can match Jeter’s consistency in whatever you decide to do in life, you’ll go far.”

To this day, Jeter remains the face of one of the most historic franchises in the history of sports, and today, July 9, he did them proud by becoming the first New York Yankee to join the 3,000 hit club. Jeter is now among the extremely select group; highlighted by legends such as Ty Cobb, Stan “The Man” Musial, and Hank Aaron. 

While nothing in life is guaranteed, Jeter pretty much stamped his ticket to Cooperstown by hitting his 3,000^th hit. Of the prior 27 members, only three of them are not in baseball’s hall of fame; Pete Rose due to banishment from the game after being caught gambling, Rafael Palmeiro who is still eligible for the HOF but questionable due to his usage of performance enhancing drugs, and Craig Biggio who will most likely gain admittance to the HOF due to his Jeter-like consistency throughout his career.

In writing this article, I tried to find things that people around the Lehigh Valley had done 3,000 times, to showcase Jeter’s consistency. The most common response I received was that people have slept, eaten, blinked and breathed that many times, if not more.

Others replied that they have taken the same route to work 3,000 times, or practiced his or her musical instrument or sport, or even laughed and smiled that many times.

However, while we can only think of commonplace activities, activities hopefully everyone in the world is fortunate enough to experience on a daily basis, Derek Jeter was on a national stage, accomplishing things very few people have or will ever get the chance to do.

Being able to perform at such an elite level is relatively unheard of. However Jeter, as he was quoted in Sports Illustrated, downplayed his achievement. Jeter said, “I thought if you play long enough and you’re consistent enough, I don’t see why [3,000 hits] would be out of reach.”

Well the average career length for a professional baseball player is only 5.6 years. Derek Jeter has tripled that in what is now his 17^th season. Not many players have over 200 hits in a season, let alone average that in a career. Jeter’s 3,000^th hit came in just his 2,362^nd game, meaning he has averaged about 1.3 hits in every game he ever played.

The hit statistic that declared Jeter’s 3,000^th does not include post-season hits. If it did, Jeter’s 185 post-season hits would have caused his 3,000^th hit to occur on June 12, 2010.

However, being an outstanding post-season player is not what got him to this point (Jeter is nicknamed “Mr. November and Captain Clutch”). It was his all-around consistency. And, consistent with fan’s demands, Jeter’s 3,000^th wasn’t just a single, he homered his way into the record books just as he hit his way into the hearts of fans everywhere since his major league debut in May 1995.