guy just showed me everything he’s got. He’ll never get me out again.”
Jeter went 0 for 5 in another game and announced, “Tomorrow I’m going 5 for 5.” He would go 4 for 4 before his last at-bat ended in a line drive to the second baseman.
Jeter’s bat was not quite as powerful as his arm. Delvecchio was the second cutoff man once when the shortstop ran out to take a throw from deep left center. When Jeter turned and fired to the plate, Delvecchio found himself in the role of unnecessary middleman.
He had never seen a ball explode out of someone’s hand like that; Delvecchio did not even think about catching it. He let the ball whiz by his ear and land in the catcher’s mitt without a bounce, beating the runner by five feet.
“I know Derek’s arm got injured,” Delvecchio said. “I’m not sure how or why, but after that year his arm diminished just a little bit.”
Either way, Jeter was staying in the moment. He was hitting and the Hornets were winning, creating a buzz among the locals and sometimes drawing sellout crowds of 7,500. The team’s manager, Evers, had been promoted to the Class AA Albany-Colonie Yankees and replaced by Denbo, whom the shortstop adored.
Suddenly minor league life was agreeing with Jeter. He was taking to Greensboro, and Greensboro was taking to him. If it was not a perfect love affair, it had more to do with the thief who broke into his Mitsubishi 3000GT at the ballpark than it did the city’s Old South roots.
In 1960, Greensboro had become ground zero for the civil rights movement when four African-American students from A&T sat at a whites-only Woolworth’s lunch counter, starting a series of sit-in protests in cities around the South.
In 1979, five antiracism activists chanting “Death to the Klan” at a rally were gunned down by Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party in an incident known as the Greensboro Massacre. Fourteen years later, Horshok said, “you still had pockets down here in the South that . . . if you went into the wrong part of town and talked to someone’s girlfriend, you could’ve gotten in a lot of trouble, if you know what I mean.”
Jeter had friends of all colors and creeds, and he was sure to never marginalize his mother’s heritage. Sometimes Derek told people he was black and white, and sometimes he told them he was black and Irish.
“Derek is biracial,” said Long, “but he sees himself more as a black person. In high school he was a victim of prejudice a few times—even people he thought were his friends said things—and so that’s his association.”
Jeter had been cut by the jagged edges of racism in Kalamazoo the year before, when he parked his Mitsubishi outside a fast-food restaurant and heard kids in another car shout, “Take that car back to your daddy, you n-----,” before speeding away.
“It’s not Kalamazoo,” Jeter would say of racism. “It’s everywhere.”
By all accounts, the overwhelming majority of Greensboro residents who came across Jeter did not care that he was black, or black and white. Delvecchio said his teammate did speak of facing prejudice on the road.
“People loved to get on him for who he was, the big publicity, the fact he was a first-round kid and biracial,” Delvecchio said. “I know he had to put up with the nonsense of being biracial.”
Delvecchio also said many minor leaguers were jealous of Jeter and would claim the Yankees “just got him because of his arm. He’s going to be a pitcher. He can’t play shortstop.”
Jeter blocked out the negative noise, no matter how relentless or vile. Having just turned all of nineteen, Derek was strong enough to assume a leadership role. He would work the locker room to make certain everyone knew what restaurant and club the guys were hitting that night. In the pregame hours he would walk behind Denbo, smack him on the ass, and say, “You ready to go tonight?”
Greensboro had itself a playoff-bound team, and the community
Jeter went 0 for 5 in another game and announced, “Tomorrow I’m going 5 for 5.” He would go 4 for 4 before his last at-bat ended in a line drive to the second baseman.
Jeter’s bat was not quite as powerful as his arm. Delvecchio was the second cutoff man once when the shortstop ran out to take a throw from deep left center. When Jeter turned and fired to the plate, Delvecchio found himself in the role of unnecessary middleman.
He had never seen a ball explode out of someone’s hand like that; Delvecchio did not even think about catching it. He let the ball whiz by his ear and land in the catcher’s mitt without a bounce, beating the runner by five feet.
“I know Derek’s arm got injured,” Delvecchio said. “I’m not sure how or why, but after that year his arm diminished just a little bit.”
Either way, Jeter was staying in the moment. He was hitting and the Hornets were winning, creating a buzz among the locals and sometimes drawing sellout crowds of 7,500. The team’s manager, Evers, had been promoted to the Class AA Albany-Colonie Yankees and replaced by Denbo, whom the shortstop adored.
Suddenly minor league life was agreeing with Jeter. He was taking to Greensboro, and Greensboro was taking to him. If it was not a perfect love affair, it had more to do with the thief who broke into his Mitsubishi 3000GT at the ballpark than it did the city’s Old South roots.
In 1960, Greensboro had become ground zero for the civil rights movement when four African-American students from A&T sat at a whites-only Woolworth’s lunch counter, starting a series of sit-in protests in cities around the South.
In 1979, five antiracism activists chanting “Death to the Klan” at a rally were gunned down by Klansmen and members of the American Nazi Party in an incident known as the Greensboro Massacre. Fourteen years later, Horshok said, “you still had pockets down here in the South that . . . if you went into the wrong part of town and talked to someone’s girlfriend, you could’ve gotten in a lot of trouble, if you know what I mean.”
Jeter had friends of all colors and creeds, and he was sure to never marginalize his mother’s heritage. Sometimes Derek told people he was black and white, and sometimes he told them he was black and Irish.
“Derek is biracial,” said Long, “but he sees himself more as a black person. In high school he was a victim of prejudice a few times—even people he thought were his friends said things—and so that’s his association.”
Jeter had been cut by the jagged edges of racism in Kalamazoo the year before, when he parked his Mitsubishi outside a fast-food restaurant and heard kids in another car shout, “Take that car back to your daddy, you n-----,” before speeding away.
“It’s not Kalamazoo,” Jeter would say of racism. “It’s everywhere.”
By all accounts, the overwhelming majority of Greensboro residents who came across Jeter did not care that he was black, or black and white. Delvecchio said his teammate did speak of facing prejudice on the road.
“People loved to get on him for who he was, the big publicity, the fact he was a first-round kid and biracial,” Delvecchio said. “I know he had to put up with the nonsense of being biracial.”
Delvecchio also said many minor leaguers were jealous of Jeter and would claim the Yankees “just got him because of his arm. He’s going to be a pitcher. He can’t play shortstop.”
Jeter blocked out the negative noise, no matter how relentless or vile. Having just turned all of nineteen, Derek was strong enough to assume a leadership role. He would work the locker room to make certain everyone knew what restaurant and club the guys were hitting that night. In the pregame hours he would walk behind Denbo, smack him on the ass, and say, “You ready to go tonight?”
Greensboro had itself a playoff-bound team, and the community
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