After Amazing Achievements, Derek Jeter is Set to Retire

“He gave the term “complete” a new meaning. He made the word “superstar” seem inadequate. He had about him the touch of royalty." This was a quote stated by former commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bowie Kuhn while speaking during Roberto Clemente’s eulogy. When baseball season came around in seventh grade, my coach of the Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School team, Fabrizo Morejon, explained that he wore the number 21 in honor of his childhood hero Roberto Clemente. He seemed such an advocate of this man that it gave me a strong motive to research and to find out who this man really was. When I began to read all about him, I found that his career was not just filled with spectacular baseball achievements, but even more so was all about

Alex Rodriguez is the third baseman for the New York Yankees. He has been playing for the Yankees since 2004, but has been playing professional baseball since 1994. Alex Rodriguez can be considered to be one of the greatest baseball players of Hispanic descent and has broken records previously set Sammy Sosa, who is also one of baseball's greatest players of Hispanic descent.

He was also really good. What I thought was amazing is that he was a rookie of the year. A rookie of the year is like an all-star but they give to people who it is there first year playing in the MLB. Two years after his rookie of the year he won the National League MVP which stands for Most Valuable Person. As a final along the path of his career he won the most valuable thing you can collect. He and his team won the World Series.

When you start your education at Sport and Medical Sciences Academy(SMSA) you are taught and are expected to follow the four core beliefs that shape our school and its environment. The four core beliefs are discipline, respect, dedication, and responsibility or how most students know it as D.R.D.R. However, SMSA students are not the only ones that abide by these rules and beliefs. A well-known athlete that is a great example of this is the New York Yankees shortstop, Derek Jeter. According to Jeter, his success did not come overnight. His biography displays all the hard work he went through to become the best and he started just at the age of eight with a goal of becoming a shortstop for the New York Yankees. Jeter inspires others to set their goals above and beyond, and if you work hard or believe in yourself that you can achieve anything you want.

"Derek Jeter, a professional ballplayer for the Yankees…" are the exact words Derek Jeter, himself, used in his eighth-grade yearbook (Jeter xvi). For as long as he could remember, Jeter has longed to be a New York Yankee. Fifteen years after predicting he would be a professional ballplayer for the Yankees, Derek Jeter is now more than a Yankee. Jeter isn't only a Yankee; he is a family guy and a World Champion. His career started when he was five years old, and everything has evolved from there. Sports fans know what life for Derek Jeter is now, but what was life like before he became a world champion, superstar, and captain of the New York Yankees.

He then left for a job as an athletic director for the National Youth Foundation. He then played minor league baseball for the Montreal Royals in 1946. While he was playing minor league he was called up to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the major leagues in 1947. It was that year that he won rookie of the year with his 175 hits, 12 home runs, and 48 RBI’s. He also appeared on the cover of time magazine in September of 1947.

Throughout his career with the Kansas City Royals he had 460 hits 109 home runs and eighty four stolen bases (Bo Jackson Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com). These stats may not seem very impressive for a normal full baseball career, but when you consider how short of a time period that he acquired all these stats it is quite clear that Bo was not just your average player. He was an all-star. His batting average for his career with the Kansas City Royals wasn’t all that outstanding but still a very solid .243(Bo Jackson Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com). Meanwhile Bo’s on base percentage was very solid as well standing at .304(Bo Jackson Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com). These statistics obviously don’t mean everything awards and tittle determine a lot about a

He is the best shortstops of our time and one of the best in all MLB. After he retires, he will be up there with Cal Ripken, Derek Jeter, Ozzie Smith, and the great Pee Wee Reese truly the best of the best. We get the privilege to watch him play and hopefully if you are smart enough you have the privilege to have him play for

Jose Fernandez had a love and enthusiasm for the game of baseball that could not be measured. Second only to his love for his family. His infectious smile lit affected those around him, a smile that will forever be remembered.

“Jackie Robinson is perhaps the most historically significant baseball player ever, ranking with Babe Ruth in terms of his impact on the national pastime. Ruth changed the way baseball was played; Jackie Robinson changed the way Americans thought. When Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, more than sixty years of racial segregation in major-league baseball came to an end. He was the first acknowledged black player to perform in the Major Leagues in the twentieth century and went on to be the first to win a batting title, the first to win the Most Valuable Player award, and the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He won major-league baseball's first official Rookie of the Year award and was the first baseball player, black or white, to be featured on a United States postage stamp”(swaine,

Jackie Robinson is truly a star who will live on forever. He has broken the color barrier for baseball and has changed baseball history forever. As Jackie always said “ I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human

His skill was a tremendous impact on his career. Due to his great success in baseball, he was the first ever African American Inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame. Despite his baseball success and becoming a big contributor of the Civil Rights Movement, “Robinson kept his word and his dignity.” (“Jackie Robinson - Mini Bio”) When Robinson was traded to the New York Giants, “...

"I love George Brett. George is everything that's right about baseball." - Charlie Lau George Howard Brett was a Major League Baseball player for the Kansas City Royals for 21 years. During his career, he achieved so much and contributed a great deal to Kansas City baseball. George Brett is a big name in Kansas City because he’s a hometown hero, has dedicated his life and time to Kansas City and has believed in and stayed with the Kansas City Royals for the past forty-five years.

It looked like Rodriguez would go down in baseball history as one of the game's most prolific offensive players. In 2010, he became the seventh player in Major League history to hit 600 career home runs. Two years later, in June 2012, he led the Yankees to a win over the Atlanta Braves, hitting his 23rd grand slam and matching the record of Hall of Famer Lou

“It’s an honor to be playing with these four players and to be a part of their fifth World Series title and my first.” said Mark Teixeira as they won their 27th World Series. The Yankees are the best team to ever play the game of baseball. First of all, They have some of the best players to ever play baseball. For instance, Alex Rodriguez is the 4th all time home run leader with 696, Barry Bonds has the most with 762. Derek Jeter is 6th on the all time hits list having 3465. Babe Ruth, Joe Dimaggio, Lou Gehrig, and Mickey Mantle were all stars of the New York Yankees and they were considered some of the best players of all time. Next, The Yankees have the most World Series wins ever. They have 27 of them and the team with the second most