Padecky: Former Casa standout recalls early days with Derek Jeter (w/video)

PETALUMA - Matt Ruoff will never forget the first time he saw Derek Jeter play professional baseball. What happened, well, he never saw it coming and he can never forget it for one simple reason. Ruoff participated in the memory.

It was June 1992. Ruoff was in his second season with the New York Yankees’ rookie team in Tampa, Fla., having been drafted the year before in the 46th round. Ruoff had starred at Casa Grande High School and Santa Rosa JC. Jeter was the sixth overall pick in the 1992 amateur draft.

The day before Jeter took the field for the first time as a Yankee, he arrived in Florida, walked into the Tampa clubhouse, occupied by players who suddenly began to stare, not saying a word, all of them thinking the same thing Ruoff, a first baseman, was.

“This is the million dollar kid?” Ruoff thought to himself. “He was skinny. He had a sunken chest. He still had the body of a little boy. And he was wearing a mullet.”

No muscle definition. A child was walking among us, some guessed. Jeter didn’t look at all like Ruoff. Ruoff was 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, built like the offensive and defensive tackle he was at Casa. Now THAT was what an athlete looked like.

Then came the next day when Jeter took the field during infield practice. Ruoff was on first base. Jeter was hit a ground ball. He fielded it cleanly and unleashed a throw to Ruoff. POP! It smacked into his glove.

“Whoa!” Ruoff thought to himself. “Where did that come from?”

The throw, Ruoff estimated, traveled around 88 miles per hour. It was delivered in this effortless, mechanically sound fashion, the kind of motion that promised a thousand, a million ground balls would end up the same way. Which they did.

For 20 years, Derek Jeter delivered baseballs this way and in the process became much more than a shortstop who would accumulate the sixth-most hits in Major League Baseball history, who fielded his position as he lived his life - cleanly. Jeter has lived life above reproach. How many big-league baseball players can we say that about in the past 20 years?

A leader in the world

As Jeter tours the parks one last time this season before retiring, Ruoff is gratified to know the Derek Jeter of 2014 is the same Derek Jeter who became his friend in 1992. After all, aren’t fame and fortune the ultimate, irresistible corrupters? Jeter has the fortune, somewhere around $250 million. As for fame, Fortune Magazine named Jeter the 11th greatest leader IN THE WORLD, just behind No. 10 Jeff Bezos of Amazon and way ahead of No. 29 (Starbucks’ Howard Schultz) and No. 33 (Apple CEO Tim Cook).

Oh yes, there are those five World Series rings and those 14 All-Star appearances, along with an almost guaranteed first-ballot entry into Cooperstown and plaque in Monument Valley at Yankee Stadium.

All of which are numbers, nice numbers. But that doesn’t say anything about the man.

This does.

“You always wanted to sit by him,” Ruoff said.

Think about that. The way Ruoff said it, he made Jeter sound like the village elder, the one people came for answers, for comfort, the one that could be trusted to say the right thing. Jeter was only 18.

“I know that sounds weird,” said Ruoff, who was released by the Yankees in 1992 after two years with the rookie club. “But Derek gave off a presence. It wasn’t what he said. It was how he acted. You knew he was a winner but he never flaunted it, never said anything about it.”

Sixth sense at shortstop

During one game, the Yankees were in the field. At bat stood a right-handed hitter who couldn’t pull the outside pitch, was weak with it in fact. The Yankees’ pitcher was going to pound the outside part of the plate to get the hitter into a simple tap-out to second or first base.

“Derek, however, moves over into the hole between short and third,” Ruoff said. “Our third baseman noticed Derek creeping close to him and asks him to get back. Derek shakes his head. Wouldn’t you know it, the hitter hits it into the hole. It would have been a single to left. But Derek fields it and throws him out.

“I ask him later how did he know that? Derek said, “I don’t know man, I got a sixth sense.’ I told Derek he should have been a gambler. He always made the right choice.”

Ruoff would come to know why. His parents, Al and Sharon, sat in the stands that summer next to Jeter’s parents, Charles and Dorothy. The Ruoffs learned how Jeter was raised. Things that might seem so outdated or out of place today in professional sports - respect, commitment, honor, optimism - were standard family values in the Jeter household.

Ruoff saw that in the 120 or so games the rookie Yankee played that summer.

“The first day he arrived,” said Ruoff, who had his $1,500 paycheck signed by now Giants general manager Brian Sabean, “he was polite to everyone. You were comfortable and relaxed around him. He made you want to step up your game. It was his … just … being there. It wasn’t anything he said.”

Advice delivered calmly

When Jeter had to deliver a message, he didn’t do it in the customary punitive manner common to baseball.

“We had a pitcher that was getting lit up pretty good,” said Ruoff, now a high voltage lineman for the Public Utility Commission in San Francisco. “The infielders go to the mound for a conference. The pitcher was trying too hard. He was overthrowing. Derek says: ‘You got nothing to lose. Stay with your changeup and curve. Give me some ground balls. I need some ground balls. You are putting me to sleep out there.’ ”

What has amazed Ruoff - as well as anyone who knew the overbearing burden that was Yankees owner George Steinbrenner - was Jeter’s equanimity with King George not needing much reason to breathe fire and discomfort in his employees.

“We would get New York strip steaks for meals,” Ruoff said. “But if we started losing then we would get meatloaf. If we kept on losing we’d get corn dogs.”

That Jeter has not had his name splashed among the tabloids for salacious behavior is not a surprise to Ruoff. Back in 1992, even as an 18-year-old kid, Jeter understood the value of comportment and maturity.

“Derek never swore,” Ruoff said. “He wouldn’t go out on the town. He wouldn’t drink. He didn’t put himself in a compromising position. And you have to remember this is summertime in Florida.”

Always resisted temptation

Where temptations hang from the trees like the oranges. They are everywhere. Just say, “I play for the Yankees,” and it doesn’t matter if you’re playing rookie ball. You are a Yankee. Drinks are free, not to mention other things. Jeter never buckled. In fact, he was very much the other way.

“We thought Derek was taking too many groundballs,” Ruoff said.

Ruoff came to find out, as so many others have, that Hall of Famers work at it. Baseball wasn’t just a job for Jeter. It was a reason for being.

Whether he knew it or not, Jeter was preparing himself for baseball immortality, not just as a player but also as a person. As the years have passed Jeter’s legend has focused not on his physical skills as much as on his mental skills.

His was the face of baseball for the past 20 years, made all the more noticeable and exemplary because there have been so few like him. Cal Ripken Jr. and Jeter quite possibly are the only big league superstars of the past 30 years who could be granted or should be granted such iconic status.

Not that Matt Ruoff didn’t have a hand in all that.

“Hey, I taught Derek how to fish!” said the outdoorsman. “Our hotel was right on Tampa Bay. We used to go out there every night after a day game.”

And how did Derek Jeter do?

I think you know the answer.

To contact Bob Padecky email him at bobpadecky@gmail.com.