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Jeter Traveled to Tampa to Get Back Into Swing

New York Times, June 1, 2000

By Jack Curry

When Joe Torre told Derek Jeter that the shortstop would be traveling to Tampa, Fla., last Thursday to rehabilitate a strained left abdominal muscle instead of going to Cleveland with the Yankees, Jeter never groused. Usually, players cringe about journeying to Florida during the season. But Jeter's reaction told Torre that the All-Star shortstop must have felt that he would benefit from returning to Tampa, recuperating and working on his swing. That is exactly what Jeter did.

The Yankees have been pleased with the results. Since Jeter was activated last Saturday, he is 10 for 17 with two doubles, one homer and three runs batted in while lifting his average 39 points to .305. Jeter called the injury a blessing in disguise because it gave him a week to focus on improvements.

"My stance was wrong, my swing was wrong and my approach was wrong," Jeter said. "When you have time off and start over, it's almost like spring training anyway. Anytime you sit out two weeks, you have to find your stroke anyway."

So Jeter returned to the routine that he follows during the off-season by working with Gary Denbo, the organization's hitting coordinator who was Jeter's first minor league manager. They work out five days a week for 10 weeks before spring training and Jeter has said that Denbo "knows my swing better than anyone else."

Jeter and Denbo studied videotape from this year and from the 1999 season, analyzing the at-bats from side angles, overhead angles and center-field angles. They quickly detected that Jeter was not holding his hands steady, was too close to the plate or too far away from the plate and was leaning forward.

Since Jeter had been 0 for 13 before he got injured and was swinging at a slew of bad pitches, he knew that he had to return to fundamentals. Jeter said the deterioration in his swing occurred because he swung at too many balls.

"Sometimes if the results aren't what you want, you start jumping at the ball when pitchers pitch you a certain way," Jeter said. "They start to do something to compensate and you wind up screwing up, instead of taking the same approach every day. It has more to do with the results not being there."

But now the results are there and Jeter is trying to keep them there.