Against this huge cultural shift, Derek Jeter has collected more hits than any of the great icons that ever played for the most famous and most studied franchises in sports, the New York Yankees, and done it with charm and grace that hardly seems possible any more.
Reaching 3,000 hits, as Jeter did Saturday with a third-inning home run against the Rays' David Price, is in itself an enormous athletic achievement, one that despite great leaps in training, equipment, nutrition and, yes, pharmacological assistance, remains as impressive as when baseball was played with dead balls by out-of-shape men who worked odds jobs in offseasons. From 1989 through 1994, just as ballparks were getting smaller, leagues were expanding and steroids were growing, 990 players debuted in the major leagues -- none of whom could parlay this enhanced hitter's age into 3,000 hits. That six-year gap without the start of a 3,000-hit career is the longest such gap since 1947, when Jackie Robinson integrated the game. And then Jeter came along.
.
