On the surface, Larkin and Jeter have a lot in common. They were both shortstops, roughly the same build (Jeter is taller), both of them planned to go to the University of Michigan (Larkin actually went; Jeter decided last minute to sign with the Yankees). They were both high draft picks (Larkin 4th overall; Jeter 6th). They were both impressive people. They were both leaders.

They each won multiple Gold Gloves (Jeter won five; Larkin three),. They each won multiple Silver Sluggers as the best hitter at their position (Larkin won nine; Jeter five).

And if you look at their almost identical Baseball-Reference WARs — Jeter at 71.3 WAR; Larkin at 70.5 — you would just assume that they were carbon copies of each other.

They weren’t … they really were very different players. But the point is that Jeter is so much more famous than Larkin. He was elected almost unanimously to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, while Larkin had to wait three years to get in. Derek Jeter hosted Saturday Night Live. Derek Jeter is named in multiple hip-hop songs. Derek Jeter was cheered and booed in every park he played in.

None of this is particularly true of Barry Larkin.

The Class of 2020 has had a long wait for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and not just because the coronavirus pandemic set the festivities back nearly 14 months. While Derek Jeter was resoundingly elected in his first year of eligibility, the road to Cooperstown for the other three honorees — Ted Simmons, Larry Walker, and the late Marvin Miller — was more like a maze, full of wrong turns and apparent dead ends. That road finally ends on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 8, when all four will be inducted into the Hall. As somebody who has been deeply invested in the careers and candidacies of all four, I couldn’t bypass the midweek trip, even under pandemic conditions.

“There was never any thought in my head that [my election] was going to happen. So to be completely honest, I didn’t pay much attention,” said Walker during a Zoom session with reporters last Thursday, referring to the annual BBWAA voting. During his first seven years of eligibility, he maxed out at 22.9% of the vote (2012), and dipped as low as 10.2% (2014).

Even those meager showings surpassed Simmons, who received just 3.7% in 1994, his first year of eligibility. “Back then, you were literally off the ballot. And you know, there was really no vehicle at that time that I knew of or heard of that would enable you to come back,” he said during his own Zoom session, referring to the so-called “Five Percent Rule” that sweeps candidates who fail to reach that mark off the ballot.

Simmons could be forgiven for not knowing the ins and outs of the Hall’s arcane election systems. That he even made it onto an Era Committee ballot to have his candidacy reconsidered for the first time in 2011 was itself groundbreaking. As longtime St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Rick Hummel, who has served on several iterations of the Historical Overview Committee that puts together such ballots, said in 2015, “The first question these Hall of Famers ask you is, ‘How many ballots was he on for the writers’ election? One? They must not have liked him very much.’”

ESPN Films is teaming up with Spike Lee and Derek Jeter for an upcoming docuseries about the former Major League Baseball star’s career with the New York Yankees.

The multi-part series, titled “The Captain,” is set to debut on ESPN and the streaming service ESPN+ in 2022. Here is the network’s full description:

Derek Jeter’s arrival with the New York Yankees helped transform a struggling franchise into a storied dynasty, all within a time of great change in New York City. As Jeter forged a Hall of Fame career, he established himself as the model Yankee both on- and off-the field, with his style, class, and charisma. Jeter’s commitment to winning came with a rare combination of competiveness and cool, traits he has taken with him into retirement as he tackles new tests as a team owner and executive with the Miami Marlins and as a father. As he prepares to enter Cooperstown this July, he is pulling back the curtain to reveal what it was really like to be “The Captain.”

Randy Wilkins, who previously collaborated with Lee on his episode of the Apple TV+ docueseries “Dear…,” will serve as director on the series.

Promising “candid access” to Jeter and his story, the project is described as “a vessel to tell a larger cultural story that explores race, family, community, rivalries and more.”