Ex-New York Yankees Scout Once Revealed His Sneaky Tactic to Scout Derek Jeter Before Making a Shocking Confession

Derek Jeter took the baseball world by storm when he joined the New York Yankees in the 1990s. The kid from Kalamazoo had made it to the big leagues, just as he’d promised his father. Full of charm, not to mention talent, Jeter was always a fan favorite. Even today, his name is synonymous with the Pinstripes. For millions of baseball fans, there has never been and probably never will be anyone like the Captain. But how did Jeter make it to the Bronx?

At the time, Dick Groch was the scout that went around selecting players that had Yankees’ potential. And he was the one that chose the 17-year-old Jeter. Today, the former shortstop is a Hall of Famer and got in with the second-highest percentage in MLB history. But Groch had already predicted his future in 1992 and used some unique tactics to scout him for the Pinstripes.

Dick Groch used to hide in the bushes to watch Derek Jeter play

Performance pressure can get anyone down, but for some, that pressure is also a golden opportunity to shine. Groch didn’t want this to affect Jeter. He made a random appearance at a talent identification camp at Mount Morris High School after Jeter’s junior year. He didn’t have any expectations, but then again, the scout hadn’t met Jeter yet. That was the first time Groch was introduced to the phenomenon that was Jeter, and he was addicted.

He went to watch the now-retired athlete play on various occasions but didn’t want Jeter to know he was there. “I did not want him to know that I was at the ballpark,” said Groch. “I sat in my car. I was in the bushes. I was in the woods. I didn’t want him to play for me, because I wanted to see how he handled failure. And every game that he played was the same.”

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Although he ultimately ended up with the Yankees, thereby changing the course of franchise history, other teams wanted the young talent. And he may have just fallen into their hands because the Yankees took their sweet time recruiting him.

The New York Yankees avoided contact with Jeter for the longest time

George Steinbrenner, the late Yankees’ owner, wasn’t the biggest fan of recruiting high school kids. There was always the chance they would go on to attend college, and Jeter was much the same. He wanted to study medicine at the University of Michigan. But after a year of watching him play, he was too good a prospect to pass up. Five other teams clearly thought the same. The Bronx Bombers, however, finally picked Jeter as the No. 6 pick in the 1992 amateur draft.

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Ultimately, the kid from Kalamazoo ended up with his beloved Yankees. He went on to lead the team as their captain for more than a decade and stayed in pinstripes for all of his twenty-season career. Fans still rue the day he retired and the presence of the Captain is sorely missed in Yankee Stadium even today.