Selig hopes Jeter will wind up owning team

NEW YORK – Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig hopes one day Derek Jeter will own a team after the 40-year-old shortstop retires as a player.

The New York Yankees captain, playing his 20th and final major league season, says owning a team is the only job in baseball that interests him.

“He’d be fabulous,” Selig said at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday after presenting Jeter with the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award. “Anything I can do to help him, I will do. I think that much of him. He’s thoughtful. Understands the sport. It would be a great thing in every way.”

Jeter, sixth on baseball’s career hits list, has said managing, coaching and broadcasting don’t interest him. He will spend time working on his Turn 2 Foundation and business ventures such as Jeter Publishing, a partnership with Simon & Schuster, and Luvo, a food company encouraging healthy nutrition that also struck an agreement with the Yankees.

Jeter, who lives in Tampa, Florida, has said there is no way to anticipate when a baseball ownership opportunity will arise.

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“It’s a little too early yet, but I would help him in every way,” Selig said, “and I think he would be tremendous.”

Selig presented Jeter with a $222,222 check for his Turn 2 Foundation and called him “the finest ambassador that I could have hoped for throughout my entire tenure as commissioner.”

He praised Jeter’s parents, saying “they did a remarkable job in a tough era of raising a great young man,”

“When I was a kid, as I’ve reminisced here today, my favourite player was Joe DiMaggio,” Selig said. “And what Joe D. meant to my generation is what Derek has meant to his. And I’ve been overjoyed to see Derek join the heroes of my youth: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and all the other greats.”