Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter is an American former professional baseball player whose entire 20-season Major League Baseball career was spent with the New York Yankees — making him one of the most-iconic American baseball figures of his generation and the all-time Yankees franchise leader in hits, games played, doubles, and stolen bases. He was born Derek Sanderson Jeter on June 26, 1974, in Pequannock, New Jersey, and raised primarily in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His father is African-American and his mother is Irish-German-American.

He was drafted by the Yankees with the sixth overall pick of the 1992 MLB Draft. He spent four seasons in the Yankees' minor-league system before debuting with the major-league club on May 29, 1995, at age 20. His career-launching 1996 American League Rookie of the Year award and his 1996 World Series win (his first of five Yankees championships) established him as the Yankees shortstop for the next two decades.

Jeter's Yankees career ran from 1995 to 2014. Across his 20 seasons he won five World Series championships (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009), 14 American League All-Star Game selections, and the 2000 World Series Most Valuable Player Award. His career batting average of .310 and his 3,465 career hits — the sixth-most in MLB history at the time of his retirement — established him as one of the American baseball figures of his generation.

Beyond statistics, Jeter became the on-and-off-the-field face of the Yankees franchise — celebrated for his clutch performances in October playoff baseball (the 2001 "Flip Play" against Oakland in the ALDS, the 2014 walk-off-hit-in-his-final-Yankees-home-game farewell). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020 with 99.7% of the vote — the second-highest first-ballot percentage in Hall of Fame history. Since retirement he has owned and operated the Miami Marlins (2017–2022) and continues to be a recurring American baseball-cultural figure. He has been married to model Hannah Jeter (née Davis) since 2016 and has four children.

His name Derek is the English form of the Old Germanic Theodorik meaning "people's ruler." Derek has been continuously among the most-popular American boys' names for decades.