Derek Jeter should have been drafted by the Houston Astros. They held the No. 1 overall pick in 1992, and they had it down to Jeter, an Ichabod Crane-ish high schooler, and Phil Nevin, the best player in college baseball. An old Astros scout, Hal Newhouser, was begging his bosses to go with Jeter. Newhouser was a Hall of Fame pitcher in his day, so of course his bosses didn't listen to him.

Jeter's first agent, Steve Caruso, landed his teenage client from Kalamazoo, Michigan, in part because he also represented an Oklahoma high school phenom named AJ Hinch, who was the Gatorade National Player of the Year. Jeter's father, Charles, called Hinch's father, Dennis, for a recommendation and, Caruso explained years ago, Dennis gave the agent a thumbs-up and ultimately cleared the way for Caruso to do the $800,000 deal that made Jeter a New York Yankee.

Why does any of this matter? Because after the Astros and Hinch were steamrolled last week in a cheating scandal that will forever tarnish everything they accomplished, it was fitting that baseball could almost immediately turn to Jeter, patron saint of the play-the-game-the-right-way athlete, like it turned to him during the steroid era. When the sport desperately needed something to persuade customers to quit paying so much attention to all this unseemly business over there, No. 2 was always the commissioner's No. 1 option over here.

Jeter was introduced Tuesday as a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2020 and just missing becoming the second player to be voted in unanimously -- a year behind his teammate Mariano Rivera. It is a day to remember what Jeter represented, and who he was long before he became just another owner of a floundering sports team (the Miami Marlins), and just another rich guy who founded a website (The Players' Tribune) that is still struggling to make a consistently profound impact.

It is be a day to remember that no post-playing business failure can reduce Jeter's staggering accomplishments over his 20-year career in the Bronx. If The Captain is worried about that, he shouldn't be. And if he's worried that he'll always be viewed through a skeptic's lens by sabermetricians who ripped his fielding range, and by faraway fans who assumed he was overhyped by the big-city media machine, Jeter shouldn't lose any sleep over that either.

Maybe you had to be there every day to understand it. Maybe it has to be our little secret in the New York market. But Jeter was every bit the titan he was made out to be, and a Yankee worthy of the blessing granted by his fellow shortstop, Phil Rizzuto, who wasn't afraid to summon the name of his teammate, Joe DiMaggio. "Derek is very comparable to DiMag in that they both have that sixth sense," Rizzuto once said. "They both play the game so naturally and beautifully. ... Joe never made a mistake, and Jeter doesn't either."

Truth is, Jeter was not a perfect player, captain or human being. He could be thin-skinned, and he could hold a grudge over real and imagined slights with the best of 'em. Yankees officials, including manager Joe Torre, were afraid to talk to Jeter about improving his strained relationship with Alex Rodriguez, with one saying that an A-Rod conversation surely would have been his last conversation of any kind with The Captain. "I would've been dead to him," the official said. "It would've been like approaching Joe DiMaggio to talk about Marilyn Monroe." General manager Brian Cashman had to confront Jeter on the A-Rod issue before the shortstop tried approaching the high-maintenance third baseman for some heart-to-hearts.

Jeter also could have used his platform to become a much more forceful advocate in favor of strict drug-testing measures, to push the players' union to protect its clean members from the PED cheats. But that squandered opportunity doesn't alter the fact that Jeter proved he could conquer an unconquerable game and lift his team to a dynastic level while playing drug-free in a sport overrun by chemically enhanced stars.

He fought off the temptation to use PEDs to keep up in the long-ball arms race because, he often said, his father was a drug and alcohol abuse counselor. Jeter worried about the moral and health consequences of taking banned substances. "Eventually," he said, "I think you're making a deal with the devil."

The Captain engaged in no Faustian bargains while winning five World Series titles and becoming the first Yankee to reach 3,000 regular-season hits; it only seemed that way. Newhouser retired from baseball, on the spot, after the Astros declined to draft Jeter, though the scout and former two-time AL MVP with Detroit did attend his Cooperstown induction ceremony that summer. The Cincinnati Reds were supposed to take the Kalamazoo Kid with the fifth overall pick in '92, at least until their scouting director, Julian Mock, defied his underlings and decided at the 11th hour he preferred a college outfielder named Chad Mottola, sending Jeter to the team of his childhood dreams at No. 6.

"I can tell you one thing," the Yankees' scouting director at the time, Bill Livesey, said the other day by phone. "I can still hear how our room erupted when the Reds made their choice."

Born in New Jersey, young Derek had assured everyone from his Michigan grade-school teachers to his AAU basketball teammates that he would someday play for the Yankees. His eighth-grade classmates at St. Augustine had predicted in a graduation booklet that he would end up in pinstripes and on Wheaties boxes. Jeter had all but willed it into existence. In his famous scouting report, next to the category labeled "Summation and Signability," Yankees scout Dick Groch wrote, "A Yankee! A Five Tool Player. Will be a ML Star!" Groch later called the prospect "Fred Astaire at shortstop."

But Jeter's early struggles represent a meaningful part of his story. A homesick and overmatched Derek cried himself to sleep in Tampa many nights in the summer of '92, telling his parents the Yankees had wasted their money on him and wishing aloud that he had gone to the University of Michigan on scholarship. While he was committing 56 errors for the Class-A Greensboro Hornets in 1993, Hornets official and former big leaguer Tim Cullen told Yankees executive Gene Michael that Jeter was the worst shortstop he'd ever seen. A Yankees official had to call the Hornets to order their official scorer to quit wrecking the kid's confidence by assigning him so many errors.

Some in the organization considered testing Jeter in center field; Jeter promised his roommate, teammate and best friend R.D. Long, that he would never, ever let the Yankees move him from shortstop. George Steinbrenner, who didn't like waiting on high school draft picks to develop, peppered his scouting director with jabs to the nose. "George would always ask me during those first two years, 'How's your player doing?'" Livesey recalled. "It was always, 'Your player.' And then after the third year, I never heard George use that expression again."

Jeter tore through the Yankee system in 1994. "Suddenly Derek became a man," Livesey said. "He just dominated." The shortstop grew more impatient than his employer, Steinbrenner. After hearing the December 1994 news that the Yankees had acquired Tony Fernandez, Jeter half-jokingly told a friend that he would go play basketball for Steve Fisher at Michigan if the Yanks didn't soon promote him to the bigs. Jeter got that call in '95 from Buck Showalter, and then played the Opening Day hero for Joe Torre in 1996 to launch a career that was hard to believe.

The Jeffrey Maier homer. The four championships in five years. The flip play against Oakland. The Mr. November homer. The face-first dive into the stands against Boston. The on-field speech he gave to close down the old Stadium. The fifth and final title he won in the first year of the new building. The incredible homer off David Price for hit No. 3,000. The even-more-incredible walk-off hit to win his final game in the Bronx in 2014.

In the middle of it all, Jeter became about as big in New York as any athlete has ever been. In 1998, the same year he would appear on the cover of GQ and break up with Mariah Carey (the star he predicted to many, as a teenager, that he would someday marry), Jeter attended the NBA All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden -- Michael Jordan's farewell All-Star appearance -- with his then-close friend Alex Rodriguez. It was clear who was the biggest attraction in the house. A-Rod stood alone, ignored, near a concession stand while Jeter was surrounded by awestruck admirers, including a college senior named Peyton Manning, who sheepishly introduced himself with a handshake and told the Yankee, "You're having some career."

It only got better from there. Though Jeter somehow never won a regular-season MVP award, he was named MVP of the one World Series the Yankees felt they had no choice but to win. Steinbrenner, Cashman and Torre were all terrified of losing to the Mets in 2000, with Cashman actually saying a defeat would have effectively nullified the titles won in 1996, 1998 and 1999. Jeter? He saw it as an opportunity to have some fun while facing a local rival. "It's like you're playing in high school," he said. The Mets didn't stand a chance against him.

Jeter never feared the fallout of failure, which allowed him to thrive on the sport's biggest and brightest stage. He said the Yankee Stadium lights made him feel like he was performing on Broadway, though on game nights he didn't act the part of an entitled leading man. Jeter stunned team trainers with his willingness to play through painful injuries, and he ran out every ground ball with the same purpose and intensity he used to try to track down opposing fast breakers in AAU ball, compelling one of his Kalamazoo Blues coaches to call a hustling Derek the most dunked-on youth player in the state of Michigan.

More than anything, Jeter was hell-bent on carrying himself in a manner that would not embarrass his parents, Charles and Dorothy, who had made Derek and his sister Sharlee sign behavior contracts in their school days. That's why Jeter could spend all those years around the city, among hordes of social media warriors armed with cameras, and never land in a compromising photo or in the middle of an unbecoming tangle with an overheated fan.

When Jeter retired, Louisville Slugger retired its black P72 model he used his entire career. Three years later, the Yankees retired his No. 2 that had become the number of choice for Little Leaguers everywhere.

Jeter was indeed a role model for the way he treated kids and umpires in ballparks all across the country. As an owner in Miami, Jeter has looked a lot more fallible without the pinstripes on. He deserves a fair shot with the Marlins and enough time to build the organization the way he wants it built. It has never been a good idea to bet against Jeter. He can still turn this second baseball career into a big success.

But the fact that he fired a number of popular Marlins employees -- including Hall of Famers Andre Dawson and Tony Perez, and a longtime scout who was in the hospital trying to recover from cancer surgery -- and handled various duties (including the Giancarlo Stanton trade) with what appeared to be a less-than-gentle approach, did not shock some who have known Jeter. That includes R.D. Long, the longtime running mate ejected from the shortstop's inner circle years ago for a reason never explained to him.

"I can't comment about Derek Jeter today, because I don't know that person today," Long, who spent six years in the Yankees system and who coached at Rochester Institute of Technology, said last week by phone. "But as a player, people who doubted him just don't get it. If some think he's overrated, that's ludicrous. I think he might be the most underrated player of all time.

"You can't change the way a performer made you feel personally. And for those who watched Derek Jeter's entire career, that dude made us say, 'Are you kidding me? How can he keep doing this?'"

As The Captain heads to Cooperstown in the wake of another big league scandal, nothing can ever diminish what he meant to the game. Derek Sanderson Jeter was everything he was made out to be. For those of us who were there in the Bronx, that feeling is unanimous.

The votes are in! Let's check in on the winners and losers from Tuesday's Hall of Fame voting results, which saw Derek Jeter get elected in his first year on the ballot, Larry Walker make it in his final year on the ballot, and Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds finish with similar totals as a year ago.

Winner: Derek Jeter

After Mariano Rivera finally broke the 100% barrier last year, Jeter fell one vote short of being a unanimous selection. There will, of course, be a witch hunt for that solitary voter, but let's not let one misguided voter ruin Jeter's day.

Jeter's spot in Cooperstown is secure. Is he the greatest shortstop of all time? No, that's Honus Wagner or, if you prefer a player who debuted later than 1897, Cal Ripken. Jeter's career WAR of 72.4 is a lot closer to that of Alan Trammell (70.7) than Ripken (95.9). Still, Jeter's legacy goes beyond the raw numbers and -- overrated, underrated or somewhere in between -- he's a clear inner-circle Hall of Famer, one of the sport's living icons.

Winner: Larry Walker

Walker's meteoric rise the past few ballots -- he was at 21.9% in 2017 -- culminated in a final-year push that raised his total from 54.6% in 2019 to 76.6% this year, just over the 75% threshold. Walker's election was always going to be a tough battle, despite a career WAR of 72.7 that ... well, it's higher than Jeter's. Walker's 8,030 plate appearances are the third fewest by any Hall of Fame hitter who began his career after 1950, ahead of only that of Mike Piazza and Kirby Puckett. Walker's greatest seasons came at Coors Field, a baseball amusement park. He played at least 150 games just once in his career. So why was he finally elected?

1. The thinning of the ballot. During Walker's early years on the ballot, it was overstuffed with a backlog of strong candidates. Walker might have been a Hall of Famer in the minds of many voters, but he wasn't one of their top 10 players on the ballot, and the rules allow a maximum of 10 votes. But 17 players were elected the past five years, and the relative lack of obvious candidates the past couple of years helped open more slots for Walker's name.

2. A younger voting bloc that is going to pay more attention to numbers, such as WAR, and less attention to some of the traditional numbers, such as hits and home runs. It appears that the younger voters are also more willing to consider players who had high peak value, even if their careers lacked longevity or counting numbers. In recent years, we've seen Walker, Edgar Martinez and Roy Halladay fit this pattern.

3. That final-year thing. Voters want to elect Hall of Famers. The average voter selected more than six names, and sentiment often rules the day in a player's 10th year. Walker, Martinez and Tim Raines all were elected in their final ballots over the past four years.

4. Oh, yeah, Walker was also a great all-around player, a five-tool talent who hit .313/.400/.565 with a park-adjusted OPS+ of 141 that is higher than that of Vladimir Guerrero, Alex Rodriguez, Reggie Jackson or Ken Griffey Jr.

Winner: Curt Schilling

In his eighth year on the ballot, Schilling saw his vote total increase from 60.9% to 70.0%. By comparison, his total is higher than those of Walker (34.1%), Martinez (58.6%) and Raines (55.0%) were in Year 8, and Schilling arguably has a stronger Hall of Fame case than any of those three. Of course, nothing is a slam dunk with Schilling. It seems that a certain percentage of voters has held his post-career propagation of hate speech and conspiracy theories against him. Players such as Walker who were once behind Schilling in the voting have leapfrogged him. There will be no groundswell of folks advocating for him like there was for Raines, Martinez and Walker. Still, the 2021 ballot is particularly weak (Tim Hudson and Mark Buehrle are the best newcomers), and that could help Schilling clear the hurdle.

Losers: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens

Also in their eighth year on the ballot, Bonds and Clemens had a similar result as in 2019: Their vote totals went from 59% to just over 60% (60.7% for Bonds and 61.0% for Clemens). As has been the case, the totals from the publicly revealed ballots -- which are almost all from active baseball writers -- are much more favorable to Bonds and Clemens (both had more than 70% on the public ballots) than the private voters, who tend to be the retired writers or football writers who used to cover baseball and the like. With just two years remaining for these two, the voter turnover isn't happening quickly enough to get them elected. That would eventually turn them over to the veterans committee, and that's assuming the Hall of Fame hierarchy, which has made its anti-PED stance rather clear, puts them on that ballot. (Mark McGwire, after falling off the BBWAA ballot, was included on the Today's Game ballot for 2017, but not 2019.)

Winner: Scott Rolen

In his third year on the ballot, Rolen took a big leap, from 17.2% to 35.3%. That's no guarantee of future election, but it puts him on the right path, and the relative dearth of strong candidates in upcoming years should help his vote total continue to mount. Rolen is a stathead favorite, thanks to his 70.2 career WAR that ranks him ninth all time among third basemen, a total heavily boosted by his defensive metrics. (He also won eight Gold Gloves, so it's not like the numbers don't match the reputation.) He had just one top-10 finish in MVP voting, and I wonder if the current crop of in-their-prime third basemen, such as Nolan Arenado, Alex Bregman and Anthony Rendon, could actually hurt Rolen's chance.

Winner: Omar Vizquel

I'm hesitant to call Vizquel a winner, as his vote total in his third year went from 42.8% to 52.6% -- not as big a leap as Rolen had. Still, this puts Vizquel in a strong position to get to 75% over the next seven years. Vizquel is also in a different boat than Walker, Schilling or Rolen: He is not a stathead favorite, with just 45.6 career WAR. Some will argue that, despite 11 Gold Gloves, his defense is overrated, and his defense is basically his entire ticket to Cooperstown (he did play the most games ever at shortstop). Although he's in a good position after three years, there's also a large bloc of voters who don't see him as even a borderline candidate.

Loser: Manny Ramirez

On his fourth ballot, Ramirez received 28.2% of the vote. He has two big strikes against him. Compared to Bonds and Clemens, he isn't on the same level as a player. You can reasonably contend that those two are the greatest position player and greatest pitcher of all time. Ramirez was an amazing hitter, with a .312/.411/.585 career line, 555 home runs and 1,831 RBIs, but he was nowhere near the all-around player that Bonds was. In fact, Ramirez's 69.4 WAR -- dragged down by his terrible defense -- is similar to that of some of the borderline candidates we've discussed. The bigger strike -- or strikes -- is the two positive PED tests in 2009 and 2011, which arguably places Ramirez in a different category than Bonds or Clemens.

Loser: Andy Pettitte

Pettitte debuted last year at 9.9% but failed to gain significant traction in Year 2, receiving 11.3%. He won 256 games and started and won more games than any other pitcher in postseason history, but voters have assessed his lack of peak value -- only three seasons above 4.0 WAR -- and deemed him short of Hall standards. Pettitte seems like a veterans committee selection sometime in the 2030s, when we're feeling especially nostalgic for those great Yankees teams of the '90s and early 2000s.

Winner: Todd Helton

Now that Walker broke the Coors Field bias, Helton's chances have to be greatly improved. He nearly doubled his vote total, from 16% to 29.2%. He isn't as qualified as Walker, with 60 career WAR and only five seasons of 5 or more WAR, but now it's possible to see a path for him to Cooperstown.

Winner: Bobby Abreu

Another stathead favorite, though his 60.0 WAR is borderline at best. His supporters will point out that total is higher than Guerrero's. OK, maybe Abreu is underrated, and Guerrero is overrated. From 1998 to 2006, Abreu hit .305/.416/.513. If you like RBIs, he had eight 100-RBI seasons. He stole 400 bases, including six seasons of 30-plus steals. His case does deserve to be debated (and now it will, as he managed to remain on the ballot).

In the latest part of his London Marathon training blog, AW’s Euan Crumley takes a look at having a little patience when it comes to improvement

Week one of marathon training done. Box ticked. All is well. Sort of.

By and large I have been really happy with the start to my schedule. Just over 50 miles covered in the first seven days, a couple of decent sessions in the bag and a real enjoyment of getting stuck into the process of London preparation have been big plus points and positives. 

And yet already I find I’m having to tell myself off – for making familiar mistakes and falling into old traps. 

Saturday saw me take part in my local parkrun, at Levengrove Park in Dumbarton, about 15 miles north of Glasgow. 

It’s an event which began life in early December and is already showing signs of impressively rapid growth. It not only presented an opportunity to catch up with friends but also provided the chance for me to draw a line in the sand, to put down a marker of my fitness and to find out exactly where I stood. 

I was optimistic beforehand and thoroughly enjoyed the run in what was absolutely glorious winter sunshine but I definitely realised I’m some way short of firing on all cylinders yet. It was a solid if unspectacular performance and a little below what I’d been hoping to see when I stopped the watch – and it prompted a little grumble at myself. 

Thankfully, I quickly realised how daft such criticism was. 

At the start of any marathon training schedule I undertake, my goal is not just to ultimately come away with an improved time on race day, but to also get better at the actual process of training. 

Whether that involves listening to my body more, paying greater attention to nutrition, even being a little less self-critical – I’m always keen to have made some sort of positive difference to my running, regardless of whether or not that has resulted in my becoming quicker. 

Not comparing the current version of my running self to previous, fitter incarnations is one old habit I had been determined to break and exactly what I thought I might achieve by having a moan at myself about a parkrun performance just six days into a 15-week marathon training schedule I can’t really say. But that’s exactly what I did. 

It has elicited a positive response, however. My disappointment, however unjustified, has underlined to me that I’m fully invested in this marathon schedule and that it clearly means something to me. The ‘incident’ also caused me to have another, rather more encouraging, word with myself and that word was patience. 

As I tuck into week two, I’m reminding myself to ‘trust the process’ as the pros might say, not to force anything and certainly to allow time – there is plenty of it, after all – for changes to take place as the training starts to kick in. 

‘Do what you’ve always done and you’ll get what you’ve always got’ is another popular saying in marathon circles. I’m looking for something different this time. 

Get involved

Thank you for your responses to the first blog of this series. I think my favourite first-time marathon memory was the person who was running the Edinburgh Marathon a few years back and saw a big sign saying ‘Yes’ planted near the route. They were impressed and inspired that someone would take the trouble to encourage all of the runners in such a way, only to discover later that it was, in fact, a message in support of Scottish independence!

This week I’d like to hear about how you avoid getting ahead of yourself when it comes to marathon training. It can be hard to contain yourself in the early stages when levels of enthusiasm and energy are high, so how do you manage to combat that feeling of wanting to go hard right from the off?

Please do get in touch and happy running. 

British number one Johanna Konta says it is important to recognise that "the season is long" and that "things will come with time".

Konta was beaten in the first round of the Australian Open by Tunisia's Ons Jabeur.

READ MORE: Konta made her earliest exit from the Australian Open by losing to Tunisia's Ons Jabeur in the first round.

Steve Borthwick will join Leicester as head coach once he has completed his coaching commitments with England.

The 40-year-old will work under Geordan Murphy, who has been appointed as the Tigers' director of rugby.

Borthwick has been lined up to take up a senior role at the Tigers for some time, and is the latest coaching change at Welford Road.

Leicester were 11th in the Premiership last season, their worst-ever finish, and are in the same place this season.

The Tigers would be bottom but for Saracens' points deduction, and subsequent relegation, for breaching salary cap regulations.

Murphy replaced the sacked Matt O'Connor as head coach of the once-dominant Tigers after a heavy defeat at Exeter on the opening day of the 2018-19 season, while former Bath coach Mike Ford was brought in to support club stalwart Murphy in March with the Welford Road club fighting relegation.

"The appointment of Steve Borthwick as head coach and Geordan Murphy in the role of director of rugby provides an exciting combination of leadership, expertise and experience to drive the club forward in its desire to challenge for major honours again," Leicester chairman Peter Tom told the club website.

"The club has enjoyed many of its greatest successes with a blend of the Tigers DNA alongside fresh, innovative ideas from outside, both among the players and the coaching staff, and we look forward to Geordan and Steve leading that in their respective new roles."

It was confirmed on Monday that Borthwick will leave his position within the England coaching set-up at the end of the season, and had changed his role from forwards coach to skills coach for the upcoming Six Nations.

'Among the brightest and most astute young coaches in the game'

Borthwick won 57 England caps in a career which saw him play in the 2007 World Cup final defeat by South Africa and captain the national side from 2008 until 2010.

He began his career with Bath in 1998, winning the European Challenge Cup and playing in two Premiership finals before leaving after a decade in 2008 to join Saracens, with whom he would see out his career.

He was captained the Saracens side that won the 2011 Premiership final where they beat Leicester 22-18 at Twickenham, as well as losing finals in 2010 and 2014 - his final game before retirement.

He also led Saracens to their first European final in his penultimate game - a 23-6 loss to a Jonny Wilkinson-inspired Toulon side in the Heineken Cup.

His first coaching role was alongside Eddie Jones as Japan's forwards coach, before having a short spell in charge of the forwards at Bristol, under ex-England boss Andy Robinson.

He left his role at Ashton Gate after just two months to link up with Jones again after the Australian had been installed as England coach after the 2015 World Cup.

"He is regarded among the brightest and most astute young coaches in the game and he played a prominent part in the coaching team which led England to the Rugby World Cup final last year," added Tom.

"He has a wealth of knowledge and experience at the very highest level as player and now as a coach, and has a clear vision of where he wants to take the team. We look forward to welcoming him on board."

Borthwick hails Jones as 'one of the greatest head coaches in the world'

Borthwick paid tribute to Jones as he prepares to leave England's staff - his final game is set to be the Six Nations game against Italy in Rome on 14 March.

"The last four and a half years working with the England team has been an incredible journey. I have worked with some brilliant players and staff," he said.

"In particular, I would like thank Eddie Jones. To have worked with one of the greatest head coaches in the world for so long has been an unbelievable experience.

"I am delighted to be joining Leicester Tigers as head coach. The Tigers have such a long and successful history, and are one of the greatest rugby clubs in the game. Welford Road, with the special atmosphere created by the club's incredible supporters roaring their team forward, is a very special place to be.

"We must now work to build upon that great history, and create our future to get this club to the top of European rugby. It is a brilliant challenge and I am excited to start working with the players and everybody associated with the team."

Analysis

Chris Jones, BBC rugby union correspondent

This move has been on the cards for months, with the only question being when, not if, Borthwick moved to Welford Road.

Borthwick has been Jones' right-hand man for years, going back to their time with Japan, but the former England captain has clearly decided it is time for a move away from the national set-up.

How he works at Tigers with Murphy will be fascinating, as will how Borthwick's career path maps out from here on in.

All of Jones' original assistants from 2016 have now moved back into the club game - they must stay on the Rugby Football Union's radar for the future.