For the 20 years he played baseball, did anyone have the world at his feet more than Derek Jeter? The New York Yankees shortstop gave his adoring fans what they wanted in the form of five World Series titles, earning him nicknames like "Captain Clutch" and "Mr. In January , he was one vote shy of becoming only the second player ever to be unanimously voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Throughout his playing career, despite being one of the biggest names in all of sports, let alone the official BMOC in the Big Apple, he somehow remained free of any major scandals or anything else that could have tarnished the Yanks' beloved No. Of course, to have some of those things he would have to have been married in the first place.
And Jeter, with utmost purpose, remained a bachelor during his playing days. Hot Baseball Players. Not that he was a monk for two decades. But through some masterly display of social wizardry, despite being a renowned playboy, he was an inoffensive playboy, someone who enjoyed the spoils of his good fortune but not in a way that got publicly out of hand or made him the object of female scorn.
Basically, Jeter was the face of the phrase women want him and men want to be him. My number one priority was on the field. I've had fun. It's not like I've never gone out; I've done a lot of things. But I've always kept sight of my number one priority. That didn't stop anyone from writing about Jeter, though—and he was careful not to read any of it.
I'd tell my family and friends, 'If you read something or hear something, don't tell me about it. And ultimately his game plan—focus on work, play on the field, play the field, and then get serious when the game is over, when there's more time and less temptation—worked out perfectly.
My wife loves living in Miami. My oldest daughter is heading into school somewhat soon, so we've begun the process of looking at schools. We're enjoying life and raising our family here. Being an unimpeachable team player for the most storied baseball franchise in the world certainly helped his image over all. So did staying quiet. As the face of the Yankees he was called upon to give sound bites about the game every night, questions he fielded as deftly as line drives—a few words here, a few there, never one of the guys known for outbursts or controversial comments.
He was all business, all the time. And while he was reluctant enough to talk about himself as a baseball player, he was prolifically silent when it came to his private life. Because now everyone is a reporter. Everyone is a photographer. Someone can take a picture and make a story, which has happened plenty of times, and twist it and turn it anyway they want to.
You used to be able to go out I've been here since I was Sports Nuts: Famous Fans. Jeter was drafted by the Yankees right out of high school in and made his major league debut on May 29, —a decade before Facebook, Twitter and Instagram would rear their heads in succession, thereby forever changing what it's like to be a famous person, whether they add to the cacophony themselves or not. Jeter, for one, does not tweet and isn't on Instagram. Hannah has accounts but uses them sparingly, and they're kid-free zones.
However, at least partly inspired by how easily a person's message can get misconstrued when it's relayed through third parties, Jeter launched The Players' Tribune , an online forum for athletes to share their stories in their own words that quickly become a popular place for them to break news as well.
Hannah, in fact, used the site in February to post, " The Derek I Know ," an essay about the moment she realized her boyfriend was a really big deal. As a globe-trotting model herself since the age of 14, she was familiar with the toll that a demanding schedule can take on a personal life.
When a friend introduced the Saint Thomas-born beauty to Jeter while she was out to dinner with her mom in New York, Hannah knew who the guy was but wasn't all caught up in the baseball thing. Luckily, she recalled, they met during the off-season and had a chance to spend real time together before he had to get back into game mode. And that's good, because Jeter had lived not just a whole life, but what a lot of men would arguably consider to be the life.
When he was a fresh-faced Yankee just starting out in the s, he dated Mariah Carey , who was more known for her mad octave range than anything else at the time, but was still an icon-in-the-making. She met the baseball player in at a charity gala when her marriage to Sony exec Tommy Mottola had already begun to unravel. Jeter was never been one to kiss and tell, but Carey has looked at the relationship fondly in the rear-view mirror, telling Larry King on CNN in , "I think he's a great guy, I really do.
And I really, really love his family. They really taught me something special, because coming from an interracial background, you know, you had the same type of background exactly. They Dated? Surprising Star Couples. But she did like dating someone who had the tendency to get mobbed as much as she did, depending on the setting.
And I welcomed somebody else getting the attention. I'm, like, 'whoa, good for you! And he's very close to his family; it's fantastic. You know, I loved to spend time with his mother and sister and father. Ultimately, she told Parade in , "It was the wrong time. Our two worlds were just too much for that moment. He got to know her at some point though, and he proceeded to wine and dine the beauty queen for almost a year before they parted ways.
As I'll point out a number of times throughout this piece, Derek Jeter is one of the most recognized players in the game, but the reason for so many fans hating on him has stemmed from him being overrated. And if you need more stats to back that up, look no further than Keith Olbermann's segment from his show the other day. While Jeter is known as Mr.
November because of his homer in the Fall Classic that won Game 4 for the Yanks they still lost the series—when looking at The Captain's playoff numbers, they aren't as great as you may think. Over the course of 16 years, the. Take, for instance, the 12 series in which he has batted. Or, excluding that homer in 's World Series, he only had three other hits in 26 different plate appearances. Jeter came up big at times, but it's a little bit inflated when looking at the cold, hard stats.
Honestly, as incredible as the tribute commercials that Gatorade and Jordan have put out to remember Derek Jeter, aren't they a little much for a guy who has won just one World Series in the past 14 seasons? Don't get me wrong: Jeter is a winner and one of the most recognized players in the past 20 years, but isn't he just a benefactor of playing in the limelight of New York more than anything?
I mean, in looking at Jeter's stats compared to someone like recently retired former Colorado Rockies star Todd Helton, they actually don't stack up at all in terms of production.
While Helton never won a World Series, he did finish in the top 20 in the NL MVP voting five straight years, made five All-Star teams and just completed a year career in which he batted. Where were all of the tribute commercials and commemorative patches on the side of his teammates' hats for Helton last year? The New York Yankees won 92 regular-season games and, eventually, their first World Series since , but there's one major flaw with how they did it—some kid named Jeffrey Maier.
If you're old enough to remember him, Maier is the Yankees fan who reached out over the right field wall and snatched Jeter's first-ever postseason home run literally right in front of Baltimore Orioles player Tony Tarasco — who appeared to have a play on the ball. Going ballistic and protesting as hard as they could, the O's couldn't convince the umps to reverse the call, which gave Jeter his first memorable, postseason moment—which should have never actually happened—and built a legacy for the then rookie.
What would a foul ball hit by Derek Jeter at Yankee Stadium during one of his last homestands mean to a mom and dad?
Apparently, a heck of a lot, because they literally went from exuberance to devastation in a matter of seconds. Following a ball being tossed his way, the dad of two young daughters immediately started posing and snapping pictures with it, with the entire section sharing in his excitement.
Yet, when his oldest daughter—who still appears to be no older than five—gets a hold of the thing, she tosses it back as if she's Henry Rowengartner from the movie Rookie of the Year.
Thankfully, the ball boy who retrieved the ball did the right thing and held onto it in order to give it back to them, but that young girl nearly saw all of her Christmas presents for the next decade disappear for unknowingly tossing the ball back.
Jeter quickly rewarded their faith. I can do it. Batting ninth mostly, Jeter hit. Not until Aug. In a primer for the postseason, Jeter slashed. It was so unusual. He had a good upbringing. His parents did a wonderful job. They raised him to be ready for this situation. Believe me, we looked for anything to get on Derek about. The way he carried himself, the way he dressed, the way he spoke … and we found nothing.
It was truly remarkable how at 21, 22 he was so completely ready to be a major leaguer and a star. There was one rare moment when Jeter showed his youth. It was Aug. The Yankees were tied, 2—2, in the eighth inning against the White Sox. With two outs and Cecil Fielder at the plate, Jeter tried to steal third base.
He was thrown out—just as Chisholm was for his team this year. I remember he had to stay on the field—it was the third out.
We have a game to win. I knew I was in trouble. From what I understood, Mr. T was going to wait to speak to me after the game or the next day. After the inning ended, he squeezed himself into the tiny space between Torre and Zimmer on the bench. He was going to take his medicine. He was so refreshing. October completed The Charmed Season, though it began poorly. In a loss to Texas in Game 1 of the American League Division Series, Jeter, batting ninth, left six runners on base with a strikeout, pop fly and ground ball.
Tomorrow is the most important game of your life. There was a trust he earned at a very early age that is so rare. Can I play in the playoffs? The next night Jeter became the youngest Yankee to get three hits in a postseason game at Yankee Stadium as New York began its run to the world championship with a 5—4 win in 12 innings.
He started the winning rally with a single and scored the winning run. The Yankees won 11 games that October, only once without Jeter scoring or driving in a run. His key contributions also included:. In 15 postseason games Jeter slashed. The only trouble he encountered involved parking in Manhattan. On the morning of the eve of the World Series, Jeter was flummoxed when he could not find his leased Mercury that he had parked the night before in front of his apartment building on Second Avenue.
I know I parked it here. And sure enough, they towed it. Parking tickets. Lots of parking tickets, man. So they towed my car. I had never seen the Braves. The only time I saw the Braves was on television when I was younger.
These are the world champions. That stands out. Derek Jeter batted. Jeter played the biggest games with a preternatural calm. There was a consistency about him derived from the disciplined way he was raised by his parents, Dorothy and Charles, who met in in Frankfurt, Germany, while both were stationed there with the U.
When Jeter was 10 years old, he decided he would be the shortstop for the New York Yankees. Wallace , Orioles Jeffrey Hammonds and Reds Chad Mottola all passed on using one of the top five picks of the draft on the skinny shortstop from Kalamazoo Central High. He had played exclusively with a metal bat as an amateur.
Jeter stood before a huge bin of wood bats. One by one he picked out bats, holding them in his hands like a finicky shopper in the produce section, searching for the one that most resembled his high school bat in size, weight and taper. Jeter would go on to take 15, appearances as a professional, including his record in the postseason and 2, in the minors. For every one of them he used the P In he moved to a inch, ounce P The model dated to , when it was created for Leslie Wayne Pinkham, a minor league catcher.
Most players, to escape the clutches of a slump, to co-opt the karma of a hot-hitting teammate or simply to pursue the chance of something better, occasionally switch bat models. That Jeter used one model for 22 years spoke to his consistency of purpose, which especially served him well in his first postseason.
I struck out before. You know, what is it? You strike out? My mind always went to being successful and it went back to times when I had success. I was just never afraid of it. For me it was just another game. I liked the attention, the spotlight, that was on postseason games.
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