MLB

Jeter’s Yankees legacy began 20 years ago today with a series of stunning breaks

Twenty years ago today, a roar went through the Harbor View Room, a large conference room next to the kitchen at George Steinbrenner’s Radisson Bay Harbor Hotel in Tampa.

A group of stunned and euphoric executives rejoiced at a baseball miracle, the Red Seas of the draft had parted in just such a way that the youngster every person in the Yankees’ draft war room was in unanimity must be taken was outrageously there with the sixth pick.

Kevin Elfering, the Yankees’ director of minor league operations, leaned toward the speaker phone connected to the Commissioners Office and read off an identification number: 19921292, a name and a high school.

THE CAPTAIN TOOK THE CALL AND THE REST IS HISTORY

And with that, on June 1, 1992, Derek Jeter of (Kalamazoo, Mich.) Central High School was a New York Yankee.

The previous year, with the first overall pick, the Yankees had taken Brien Taylor, and the negotiations had been so antagonistic en route to the lefty’s record $1.55 million signing bonus that the organization decided to put out a statement and nothing more about selecting Jeter, so as not to provide Jeter’s camp any leverage in negotiations.

Within the Yankees cocoon, though, the elation was overflowing. Jeter was the top player on their board, grading out wonderfully as an athlete and player, and so off the charts — in the team’s estimation — when it came to makeup the Yankees did not care he was limited to 59 at-bats as a senior by playing in a cold-weather state. The bliss, however, was mainly that five teams had bypassed Jeter, three of which had him atop their boards.

The Yanks were so dubious Jeter would last that they had a scout named Joe DiCarlo parked in front of the home of a Pennsylvania schoolboy righty named Jim Pittsley, ready to begin negotiations instantly with the youngster they were taking if Jeter didn’t fall. Pittsley went 7-12 with a 6.02 ERA in parts of four seasons with the Royals. Jeter, you might have heard, has 3,159 hits and five World Series rings, all as a Yankee because five teams passed him up.

Why did those teams skip Jeter? There were hundreds of reasons, but here are a few:

1. Astros owner John McMullen had once been a limited partner with the Yankees and had famously said, “There’s nothing more limited than being a limited partner of George Steinbrenner.” Yet McMullen had a lot of The Boss in him. Upon buying the team, he raised payroll and star power, notably by purchasing Nolan Ryan. But when the team went bad he ordered a rebuild that led to Houston losing 97 games in 1991 and getting the first pick.

That led the impetuous McMullen to suspend the rebuild. With pressure for a more-immediate impact than a high schooler could bring, the Astros ignored the pleading of scout Hal Newhouser, a Hall of Fame pitcher who implored the drafting of Jeter. Instead, Houston took Cal State Fullerton’s Phil Nevin, imagining he would be ready when Ken Caminiti left as a free agent after the 1994 season.

2. The Indians never wavered in their lust for Paul Shuey out of North Carolina, imagining the fire-balling righty as their long-term closer.

3. The Expos’ philosophy was to draft the highest-ceiling high school player available, having done that with their previous four first-round selections, which included Cliff Floyd and Rondell White. There was no doubt Jeter was the best high schooler in the draft.

However, in 1990 with Todd Van Poppel and ’91 with Taylor — both high schoolers — their advisor, Scott Boras, had forever changed the pay formula for high picks. Van Poppel got a record $1.2 million, Taylor the $1.55 million deal. Montreal, already feeling a money crunch that would lead to its departure to Washington, had just $550,000 budgeted. Derek Jeter had a University of Michigan scholarship as leverage.

The Expos took Mississippi State lefty B.J. Wallace, who never pitched above Double-A and who last year was arrested in Alabama on drug charges alleging he was making methamphetamine in his home.

4. The reps for Jeffrey Hammonds sent letters to Indians and Expos officials warning not to take the Stanford outfielder. They wanted a big deal from a big-market team and the Orioles had become a big-market team two months earlier when they opened Camden Yards.

With Cal Ripken, Baltimore felt no need for a shortstop, plus, under team president Larry Lucchino, the team had focused on college players in the first round, including another Stanford player, Mike Mussina. So the Orioles gave Hammonds $975,000.

5. The Reds were the team the Yankees feared most. Gene Bennett, a special assistant to the GM, had talked the most to the Jeter family of any baseball official. Eyeballing the Midwest, Bennett had helped bring Barry Larkin, Paul O’Neill and Chris Sabo to the Reds. Bennett saw Jeter as such a good athlete that he could play center until Larkin retired.

He knew Reds scouting director Julian Mock had only seen Jeter as a senior when his ankle was hurt, plus Mock had a thing for the power arm and bat of Central Florida’s Chad Mottola. Still, when he heard a Reds official say Mottola’s name in the speakerphone, Bennett thought he was having a practical joke pulled on him. Until he heard: “The New York Yankees are up.”

That was when a roar went through the Yankees’ war room. The day before the draft, in the last moment of doubt, Yankees scouting head Bill Livesey had asked Dick Groch if Jeter would accept that Michigan scholarship to play for former Tigers catcher Bill Freehan. Groch was the scout who had watched Jeter most for the Yanks, been intoxicated by the mix of talent and temperament.

“He’s not going to Michigan,” Groch told Livesey. “He’s going to Cooperstown.”

The next day, 20 years ago today, the road to the Hall of Fame began with five teams bypassing Jeter — a baseball miracle.

joel.sherman@nypost.com