from today's NYTimes:
Yanks May Go on Instinct With Jeter in Center
By MURRAY CHASS
IF Derek Jeter moved from shortstop to center field next season, he would win a Gold Glove within a year, Bobby Murcer said yesterday.
A shortstop-turned-center-fielder himself, Murcer wasn't proposing that the Yankees move Jeter to fill their center-field gap, but he was responding to my question about the possibility of the Yankees' moving Jeter or Alex Rodriguez out there.
Murcer was the first person I thought of yesterday after reading a Reuters article. It was an interview with Yankees Manager Joe Torre in which he said the team had thought about moving Jeter or Rodriguez to center. "We just haven't made a commitment to that," Torre was quoted as saying. "We haven't broached it with the shortstops."
Later in the day, the Yankees denied that Torre had made those comments. "He couldn't have debunked the story any more strongly," said Rick Cerrone, the Yankees' senior director of media relations.
Maybe Torre wanted to debunk the idea that he would consider converting one of the two stars, but I have no reason to question the accuracy of the reporting of Larry Fine, who interviewed Torre and wrote the article. Fine said that he rechecked his notes and that the quotations he had used were there.
That dispute aside, though, let's talk about the idea. It's an excellent one. The Yankees need a center fielder to replace Bernie Williams, whom they should have replaced a year ago. It would have been difficult to remove Williams completely given all that he had meant to the Yankees, but general managers and managers, especially the Yankees' general manager and manager, are paid a lot of money to take difficult and unpopular steps when they become necessary.
Replacing Williams now, the Yankees say they are prepared to use Bubba Crosby. That's the type of move the Florida Marlins might make if they traded Juan Pierre in the continuation of what they say is a market correction and others call a fire sale. Maybe the Yankees could win with Crosby in center, but consider this trifecta:
¶Switch Jeter to center.
¶Move Rodriguez back to shortstop.
¶Sign the free agent Bill Mueller, late of Boston, to play third base.
Choosing Jeter over Rodriguez to play center is easy. The Yankees asked Rodriguez to give up shortstop for third base when they traded for him two years ago, and he worked diligently to master the position. His outstanding defense last season contributed to his Most Valuable Player award. It would be unfair now to tell him to forget third, learn center.
If Jeter, on the other hand, were asked to learn center after 10 years as a major league shortstop, he wouldn't be the first. The Hall of Famer Robin Yount moved to the outfield after 11 major league seasons as a shortstop and won a second M.V.P. award as a center fielder in 1989.
Mickey Mantle began his professional baseball career as a shortstop but played in only seven major league games there. He was, of course, a center fielder. Murcer moved to center, too, after playing shortstop in all 29 of his games for the Yankees in 1965 and 1966. When he returned from two years in the Army in 1969, he found himself at third base.
Murcer experienced one of the most memorable moments of his career during a game the Yankees played at Seattle's tiny Sick Stadium in 1969.
"You could hear fans whisper; that's how close you were to them," recalled Murcer, who was playing third base in that particular game and had already thrown away a couple of grounders. "A guy hit me a two-hopper at third and someone yelled: 'Look out! He's got it again!' "
Not long afterward, Manager Ralph Houk told Murcer to take fly balls in the outfield before a game. "I want to get you out there so far they won't be able to hit the ball to you," Houk told him.
"He was kidding," Murcer said. "I think he was kidding."
But the next night Murcer took six or seven flies during batting practice, started the game in right field, then started regularly in center thereafter.
In discussing a Jeter move to center, Murcer stressed that he was speaking hypothetically, that he didn't know the Yankees' plans and wasn't proposing the move.
But he said in a telephone interview: "I think D. J. would win a Gold Glove out there. If you had to pick between the two, Jeter would be better because of his quickness. He's a little faster than A-Rod, especially in the takeoff. In center field, you need a quick half-step and you have to be in full stride with your first stride. That's what Jeter has."
To illustrate Murcer's point, you need to think of only two Jeter plays: his full-out, headfirst dive into the third-base stands to catch a foul pop and his remarkable dash across the infield in the playoff game with Oakland where he snared a throw from the outfield that was going awry and threw out Jeremy Giambi at the plate with a backhand flip.
"As long as I've been in baseball, going on 42 years," Murcer said, "D. J. has as good a baseball instinct as anyone I've ever seen. If he moved to center field, it would be an absolute breeze for him."
