The Captain Essays - Baseball, New York Yankees Players,

The Captain Derek Jeter grew up playing baseball and was a spectacularly well-adjusted child . Due to his quick mind, well-being manner, and confidence that his parents built up in him, his bad days were few to far between . He succeeded at just about everything he tried, especially baseball . He knew the game like the back of his hand and he had and developed essential leadership attributes within the game . In high school, Derek was the team captain for the baseball team at Kalamazoo Central High School . By his junior year of high school, he was at the top of a lot of college scouting and recruiting lists . He batted . 557 and slugged seven home runs . Later, as a senior, Derek hurt his ankle . Despite the few at bats from the injury, he still hit . 508 and averaged 1 run batted in per game . Derek was determined to succeed and it paid off for him . A lot of professional and college eyes were on him and he did not want to disappoint . Michigan State offered Derek a full ride, but he was looking to go pro . New York rarely used first-round choices on a high school player, but Derek was an outlier due to his capabilities, work ethic, and leadership . Derek signed a contract for $700,000 including a promise by the Yankees to pay for his college education if he was to suffer a career-ending injury . Derek quickly began a process of transformation in order to better prepare himself for the pros and he adjusted quickly due to his hands on learning capabilities . Derek had all you could ask for as a coach from a learning and understanding point of view ( O'Connor, 2011 ) . His ability to quickly learn was contrary to his leadership as well . Even Though, Derek was blessed with talent and several other positive capabilities, he did struggle at times as well . His first year in pro ball in 1993, he had an impressive season for Greensboro, batting . 295 with 30 extra-base hits but he struggled defensively with 56 errors . He knew that his defense nee ded to improve in order to further continue his career and quickly began making changes . Derek was too determined to be satisfied . After his season in Greensboro, Derek was reassigned to Tampa for the Florida State League . In 69 games, he hit . 329 while stealing 28 bases . Derek was bumped up to Class (AA) Albany in June, and he continued to hit the ball well , batting . 377 in 34 games . He finished the year at Class (AAA) Columbus, with a . 349 batting average . Due to his stunning statistics, Derek was named Minor League Player of the Year and was able to join the Yankees during an All-Star convention . However, the managers of the Yankees wanted Derek to stay in the minors for another season in order to mature, since he was so young (O'Conner, 2011) . Derek did more than just mature in his next minor league season with the Clippers . He batted . 317 with 27 doubles and 9 triples in 123 games and led the International League in runs scored with 96 . In May of 1995, things made a turn for the best for Derek as the starting shortstop for the New York Y ankees, Fernandez got injured . Derek's hard work finally payed off and he was called up to the Yankees . However, Derek did not see much action, hitting . 250 overall in 15 games . As the 1996 season approached Derek earned his starting spot at shortstop and Fernandez became the substitute . As the season began however, Derek almost lost his spot . He played as though he was really nervous throughout spring training but finally relaxed when Fernandez broke his elbow in the final week before the actual season began (O'Connor, 2011) . On opening day, Derek became the first Yankee rookie to hit a homerun in the season's first game in 25 years . Derek made quite the debut for