Original subtitles

"The Captain" is presented by Capitol One.

What’s in your wallet?

And sponsored by T-Mobile 5G --

the best 5G coverage in the game

And American Family Insurance --

Insure carefully, dream fearlessly.

you. Kamilo: Pleasure to meet you. DeKamilo: Hello I am doinKamilo.

Kamilo: You were a legend back in the day.

Derek: Thank you (laughs)...

Kamilo: What’s it like being famous?

Derek: Not a lot of privacy. Everyone knows what you’re doing.

Kamilo: I just one asking for your phone number.

DereK: To call me?

Kamilo: Yeah.

Derek: How often? Do you call a lot?

Kamilo: Once in a while. Do you ever miss your hair?

Derek: (laughs)

"The Captain" is presented by Capitol One.

♪

Derek: I’ve lived a dream, you know,

since I was 4 or 5 years old,

and part of that dream is over now.

The fans are chanting, "Thank you, Derek."

And I’m thinking to myself, "What are you thanking me for?"

I just try to do my job, you know?

Really, they’re the ones that I want to thank.

They’re the ones that have made this special.

It’s kind of hard when people ask you questions

about what it’s like dealing with the media,

what it’s like dealing with the fans.

The relationship that I’ve had with the fans

and the public has been a good one.

But I grew up in the public eye,

and there are certain things

that you want to keep near and dear.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Man: Derek Jeter was in a fishbowl

from the minute he arrived in New York.

You’re talking about a guy

who came up as this touted rookie shortstop

who went on to win Rookie of the Year

on a team that won the World Series,

and that just set the tone for his entire time

in a Yankee uniform

that the spotlight was always on Derek.

Jordan: We stay in front of the camera pretty much our whole lives,

you know, and expectations been on us

for our whole lives.

One wrong move can destroy your image,

what you’ve built, and what people think of you.

I always wanted to protect that place

that I could go where, you know --

you don’t want to say "feel normal,"

because you always feel normal.

But where you can go where it doesn’t feel

as though all eyes are on you.

♪

♪

♪

[ Crowd cheering ]

♪

[ Crowd cheering ]

♪

♪

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

Crowd: Der-ek Jet-er!

Buck: It seemed predetermined that we’d be right back here

a year later for a rematch of sorts.

Torre: 2004, you know, you have to go into

that lion’s cage again, man.

You got to play the Red Sox

in order to get to the World Series.

McCarver: These two cities simmering

with enthusiasm and anticipation.

Rodriguez: We knew whoever won this series

was gonna be World Series champions.

Announcer: The pitch to Matsui.

Fly ball deep down the right-field line.

Here comes Jeter! Here comes A-Rod!

Bases-clearing double! Hideki Matsui!

We won games. They’re like gold.

Announcer: Yankees win!

Torre: You win game 1, you win game 2.

Announcer: Swung on and lined to deep right.

And it’s gone! John... He got a pitch...

[ Crowd chanting "Who’s your daddy?" ]

Here’s the 1-2.

He stuck him out swinging! Ballgame over!

Yankees win!

Sheffield: Well, as far as the players were concerned,

I knew it was over.

There was no way they’re gonna beat us.

Buck: That ball is up and out.

An unbelievable display.

Announcer: Hideki Matsui with his second home run of the game.

Yeah, I mean, look. We jumped out 3-0 on Boston.

I mean, especially after game 3. We blew them out.

Announcer: He hauls it in, and this one mercifully has ended.

Buck: Amazing, impressive night.

Sherman: Yankees killed them to go up three games to none.

Alex Rodriguez is the best hitter on the Yankees.

It’s like the Red Sox didn’t complete the trade for A-Rod.

A-Rod is carrying the Yankees.

Nobody’s ever come back from three-nothing down.

McCarver: And a ton of trouble for the Red Sox.

We’re one loss away from getting swept by the Yankees?

It just felt like the ultimate kick in the nuts.

You show up the next day,

and you’re unsure, walking to the ballpark.

You’re like, "Are we just walking to our execution?"

But then the outlook of certain guys changed --

changed the whole mood in the clubhouse.

Williams: We had a good relationship still with Ramiro Mendoza,

which is one of the pitchers

that ended up pitching with the Red Sox.

All the families went out in Boston to eat,

and we invited Ramiro.

We were in heaven, you know? It’s like three games, you know?

To us, it was just a formality.

And then Ramiro

says this bold thing in the middle of the table.

He says, "Guys, we’re gonna win the series."

And we go, like, "Are you freaking crazy?!"

Don’t let us win this game tonight.

Then they get Petey, and then they get Schill game 6.

And game 7, anything happens.

Starting to, like, develop this heartbeat,

you know, the sense that like,

"...it. We have nothing to lose."

Buck: The 1-2.

That’s a two-out single for Jeter

and keeps the inning alive for Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod goes into left center field. Back at the wall.

Alex Rodriguez has hit one over the Monster.

Mariano Rivera faced four batters in the eighth

and will work to the bottom of the order here in the ninth,

trying to finish off a sweep.

Now pinch runner Dave Roberts is gonna come in for Boston.

When he came in, everyone in the stadium knew he was stealing.

Right? That’s tough to do.

Buck: That was close.

Mueller still waiting for his first pitch.

Roberts is going. Posada’s throw...

Roberts. Safe.

♪

Derek: And, I mean, if this ball was

6 inches on the other side, he’s out.

It didn’t happen.

And, you know, that’s the way it goes.

But I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

[ Chuckles ]

Buck: Up the middle.

Roberts will come to the plate.

Bill Mueller has tied it.

Bottom of the 12th. A 4-4 game.

Ortiz into deep right field. Back is Sheffield.

We’ll see you later tonight!

Torre: You know, you lose a game,

and you -- you lose a little confidence.

Buck: One of the most clutch postseason performers

in their franchise history at the plate, Derek Jeter.

And at this point, this is the biggest at bat of the night.

Derek: You know, you never think you have the luxury

of three games to win one.

You know, it’s -- you got to -- You got to finish it.

Buck: Red Sox clinging to a 2-1 lead.

Line drive. It is gonna be fair down the right-field line.

Throw home. Safe.

It’s a 3-run extra-base hit for Jeter,

who drives in his first runs of this ALCS.

We had a 2-run lead in the eighth inning.

I had Derek sacrifice.

McCarver: I think Jeter’s too good a hitter

to be bunting here.

Buck: He does bunt. The sacrifice is good. 1-4.

And, you know, Alex was the next hitter.

Buck: The 2-2.

Got him. Up and in. Two out.

And a big strikeout for Timlin.

Torre: That hurt.

Buck: Ortiz hits it to deep left field.

Back at the Monster and gone. It’s a one-run game.

Derek: You can easily tell when pressure’s getting to people,

especially if you haven’t been in those types of games before.

Buck: Nixon with a base hit to center,

and Roberts will go to third.

Trying to keep it 4-3, New York.

In the air to center, and it’s a 4-4 game.

Torre: You know, those things are signs,

not that it’s bad luck for you,

but maybe the good luck,

you know, stopped happening for you.

Buck: Clark hits it into the right-field corner.

That ball is going to bounce

and go into the seats for a ground-rule double.

Boy, that grand-rule double was spooky.

I mean, only in Fenway Park.

I mean, it hit the ledge of the low wall.

Our runner was basically rounding third,

and he had to go all the way back,

and we go, "Oh, my God."

Buck: Ortiz fights it off. Center field.

Damon running to the plate.

And he can keep on running to New York!

Derek: Once they came back in game 5,

all the pressure now had turned to us.

Sherman: Between game 5 and 6,

somebody from the Yankees calls me and says,

"I know nobody’s ever blown a three-nothing lead before.

We can’t get 27 outs well in game 7.

We have to win game 6.

Otherwise we’re gonna make history."

Buck: The story with Schilling,

the ruptured sheath around the tendon, his right ankle.

Here we go with Curt Schilling and his bloody sock.

Derek: I don’t think people realized

how bad it was prior to the game,

and during the game he didn’t look any different.

Buck: Is the thought on a wet night like this, at all,

making him field his position, dropping down bunts?

Torre: You know, if I felt that that was a detriment,

I would have said, "Damn right. Let’s bunt."

But I just didn’t do that.

Sheffield: We didn’t have guys that wanted to do that,

that was willing to win at all costs.

This ain’t what I pictured the Yankees to be.

I don’t know how many guys we had that really could bunt.

I guess I could have.

Posada: The little luck, the little things,

everything was going their way.

Announcer: Swing and a fly ball deep down the left-field line.

Back goes Matsui. And it is off the wall, in play.

Buck: It hit that fan.

McCarver: Black pullover.

Buck: And it’s a home run. 4-0, Boston.

We had great players, but this was a different team.

Right? It is. Not saying it’s good or bad.

But it’s different.

Announcer: The new pitcher, Bronson Arroyo.

Buck: Working in the bottom of the eighth

with a 4-1 lead.

There’s pressure once you get to the postseason.

You know? You can’t make mistakes.

Buck: Now it’s Jeter, with Rodriguez to follow.

Announcer: The pitch.

Swung on, lined. It’s a base hit, left field.

Cairo rounds third. He’ll score.

And the Yankees trail, 4-2,

and they have the tying run at the plate.

Buck: Alex Rodriguez.

Off the end of the bat. Arroyo...

The ball gets loose.

Jeter coming all the way around. It’s a one-run game.

Sheffield: When I saw that ball trickling down right field,

I said, "We’re gonna win this game."

He made a hard play, and this is what I’ve been waiting on.

Buck: And now we’re gonna have an argument

as Francona comes out of the dugout.

Announcer: He swatted the ball out of Arroyo’s hand.

Here’s the thing, man. In the heat of the moment...

I remember Mike Tyson bite a couple ears off, right?

You’re trying to represent the whole state of New York.

You’re trying to win. There’s enormous pressure.

The only choice you have is just Karate Kid something.

You know, in retrospect, I should have just, you know,

sat there and let him tag me, be a good boy.

Buck: And they’re gonna call him out.

They’re gonna bring Jeter all the way back to first base.

The umpires call Rodriguez out on interference.

Two out in the ninth inning.

Will those ghosts reappear for the Yankees?

The Yankees had a chokehold on this series,

up three games to none.

The Red Sox have won three straight.

Sherman: The championship Yankees,

it had this group dynamic of trust

where they all believed in each other,

and by believing in the group,

it took the pressure away from the individual.

Announcer: Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.

Sherman: Once they moved away from that,

they’re bringing in players who believe,

"We will only win if I succeed."

And suddenly that pressure is palpable.

Buck: And here’s Ortiz. He rips one into right field.

Back at the wall. 2-0, Red Sox.

Sherman: These are big personalities.

Are we sure anyone could be the captain of that

and make it work seamlessly?

Buck: Damon hits it in the air to right field.

Sheffield back, at the wall.

A grand slam!

Torre: I can’t accept all the great things that happened

that went in our favor

without understanding that it may not happen all the time.

Buck: Bellhorn hits it into right.

If it’s fair, it’s gone.

[ Rattling ] It is gone.

Torre: It was one postseason that you wish hadn’t happened,

but I don’t think I ever lost sleep over

saying I wish I had done this instead of that.

McCarver: I don’t think I have ever seen

that expression on Derek Jeter’s face.

Buck: It’s midnight here at Yankee Stadium.

Here it is. Ground ball to second. Reese.

The Boston Red Sox have won the pennant!

There it is! We did it!

Williams: For all the success that we have had against the Red Sox,

I think 2004 made up for all of it for them.

I mean, there is no more embarrassing way

of losing a series.

I don’t think there’s anything in the world

that can top that.

Derek: You know, it’s -- it’s misery, you know?

Sick to my stomach.

Got out of New York.

Um...

Went back home.

Boston won the World Series.

Manny Ramirez had a sign saying,

"Jeter’s playing golf right now,"

during the parade.

Someone had sent it to me.

Um...

So, yeah, that made me sick.

♪

Posada: I didn’t sleep well for a while,

and going over in my head and going over in my head.

I kept looking at the tapes.

I even timed myself on the stolen base by Dave Roberts.

1.91, you know, down to second base.

Curry: As great a team as you had,

you’re now remembered as the team

that blew a three-to-nothing deficit.

Epstein: It felt like a bit of an exorcism, you know,

that there were these ghosts,

obviously, that were haunting us.

All of a sudden we had gotten through it, we had triumphed.

We were writing our own story for once.

Bryant: And to do it there, to do it in the old place,

to do it at Yankee Stadium,

this place where so many things had happened.

It’s not hyperbolic to say

that that was the moment that changed everything.

Russo: The Red Sox are going to the World Series.

Francesa: They dragged the Yankees

around the field for four hours.

That was a mugging with an audience.

Kay: The thing with New York is

it’s got the greatest media presence in the world,

and I think it’s the greatest place

probably to play when you win,

but it’s really, really tough if you don’t do well.

Jones: The New York market is one

that beats you down without even trying

because no team’s gonna win enough for the New York media.

Francesa: The Yankees’ performance has been putrid,

and Duke’s played center field like he’d never seen it before.

It can be absolutely unforgiving.

And for the player who can’t handle it, it’s a problem.

And we’ve seen many players come through here and not handle it.

It’s a bitch playing in New York,

you know, and it’s not easy.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

The mere volume of reporters.

You got 30, 40 members of the media at home games.

You have beat writers. You have columnists.

You have TV. You have radio.

I mean, you have a full clubhouse.

Sherman: Early part of Derek’s career,

newspapers are still dominant.

The Daily News, New York Post tabloid war

is still a thing that doesn’t really exist anymore.

So, like, if there’s an exclusive

on the back page of the Daily News

and you work at the New York Post, that’s a bad day.

Feinsand: When I worked at the Daily News, I would wake up every morning

and go to the New York Post website to see what was in there

because if I got beat by the New York Post,

I knew that the call from my editor was coming pretty soon

if it hadn’t been the one that woken me up already.

Zillo: Mark’s job for writing for the Daily News

was to get something on the back page

that was gonna help somebody who’s walking past

on the subway platform to buy the paper.

Derek Jeter is gonna help the Daily News sell newspapers.

Sherman: You’re judged by,

what do other people have, what do you have?

It creates a, um, aggression

in how you cover the team,

especially if you want to keep this very prestigious beat.

Hey, hey, hey!

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Get that guy a uniform!

[ Laughter ]

Feinsand: You can’t write enough about Jeter.

You can’t write enough about A-Rod.

You can’t write enough about Matsui, Posada,

Rivera, Pettitte.

Basically, anybody making less than $10 million

is probably not worth writing about.

Back up to you, guys.

Derek: I’d like to think that my relationship

with the media is a good one.

I didn’t try to make their job difficult.

I tried to make my job easier.

This was how I was gonna survive in New York.

Man: Derek, how do you feel after

coming up with the first big clutch of the year?

Well, you feel good. I mean, you want to bail Mo out.

Pavano pitched a great game. He deserve the win.

Over the years, Mo’s saved us many times,

so we want to pick him up.

Matthews: The way he handled the media

in the clubhouse was brilliant.

Every single game, he would answer every single question.

Carig: He was so aware of his role

as the face of the franchise,

as a face of the game, as a captain.

How he dealt with the media was a reflection of that.

Derek: In order to maintain

a certain level of consistency on the field,

my job was to limit the distractions with our team.

Some members -- I don’t want to say all members --

but they’re chasing headlines and quotes.

And my job was to eliminate the distractions and end stories.

Bryant: There are very few players that I covered

that were as politically suspicious as Derek Jeter.

He understood very clearly

that the nature of media and player,

especially in New York, is adversarial.

We want information you don’t want to give us.

It’s how it works.

Well, you can’t worry about what happened

in the regular season because you get to the postseason,

every team is zero and zero, so that’s the philosophy

we took, and we’ve been here before.

We know what it takes to win, and we continue to do it.

Olney: It was absolutely an art form

that every day Derek would make himself available

and he would go out and speak to reporters.

And most days he would say absolutely nothing.

Every year, it hurts when you lose,

but you don’t carry one year into the next.

Take it one day at a time. We have guys that are capable of throwing well.

So go out there, and hopefully they can do the job.

Kay: The writers in New York

want to give you more than just the game.

You want to tell a story.

What’s Derek about? What’s he really like?

Because I think New Yorkers are curious, as well.

The writers dig a little deeper,

and I think that sometimes angers the athletes.

That’s why the media and the players are at cross-purpose.

Matthews: He had a couple of standard responses.

If you asked him a question about another teammate,

he’d say, "You’ll have to go ask him."

You’d have to ask him. I didn’t bring it up.

If you asked him about something

that was even slightly controversial,

he’d say, "First I’m hearing of it, buddy."

So, that way, he wouldn’t have to answer the question.

You know, to be honest, I just found out about it

when the media asked me that question, so...

Sometimes you’re asked the same questions,

and you get into a routine, right? "Okay. Here we go.

I’m answering the same question, answering the same question."

Man: What sort of a letdown is it to have to go back to Oakland

and to lose in this fashion?

Well, you got to forget about it.

Carig: Yeah, there was a sameness of the questions.

On the flip side of that, when you tried something different,

you got the same response.

So I think this is a case where, you know,

it takes two to put boring quotes out.

Quinn: He never broke character. He’s always Derek Jeter.

You never got a sense of who was inside there.

You got to work pretty hard

to keep things that tight for that long.

That’s as impressive a discipline

as anything he did on the field.

He was guarded. He was vanilla at times.

He was not a great quote. I think he knew that.

That was by design.

My number-one focus, my number-one priority

always was winning.

I didn’t want distractions.

I didn’t want anything that took away from my mind-set

when I was on the field. I didn’t want anything

to take away from the mind-set of the team.

I know there is a... few people out there

that probably, you know, resented it.

Sherman: As somebody who was chronicling those teams,

he was the most important player on those teams,

and it was frustrating.

So on one hand, I greatly admired his discipline.

Like, "I’m not gonna threaten my reputation.

I’m not gonna threaten Jeter Inc.

by saying something stupid

and lose the most endorsable player in the sport.

I’m not gonna lose my status with the Yankees

to have a good quote."

And yet I really feel

like something was lost to baseball in large.

I used the term in a column once --

nobody hid it in plain sight like Derek Jeter.

Verducci: In the media, we work a lot of times on negativity.

Negativity gets more clicks.

Manning: The New York media, they’re quick to look

for any sort of headline,

and so, you know, when you’re playing well,

they want to make you the greatest.

All of a sudden you have one or two bad games, you know,

they’re gonna find, "Hey, what’s wrong with this guy?

We got to get him out. He’s not good enough."

You screw up a game, right,

you make an error, and they say, "What happened?"

What do you mean, what...happened? You saw what happened.

You know? I missed it. "But what happened there?"

The ball bounced up, didn’t go in my glove,

and I missed it, you know?

Or, "You struck out. What were you thinking?"

I’m trying to get a hit. And I struck out.

You know, those things happen, right?

Announcer: Popped up. Third-base side.

A-Rod and Jeter.

And who’s gonna get it? They drop it.

Oh, man.

Two great players are there for the easiest pop-up.

And the ball came loose.

What else could go wrong?

[ Indistinct talking ]

Derek: Well, I think they already had their story, right?

They had the story that we didn’t get along,

we weren’t going to get along.

And they just -- that added to it.

Woman: Did you know it had fallen, or did you think --

No, I thought he had it.

And then he said to me -- he said, "You got it?"

I thought he was playing around.

So I started running off the field

’cause I didn’t touch it, and then it was on the ground.

That’s it. That’s all the story you can do with the pop-up.

Announcer: And he strikes out again.

So the struggles continue. [ Crowd booing ]

And the boos reignite.

Murti: Fans started booing Alex Rodriguez.

One of the questions that was asked to Derek was about,

you know, like, "Do you have a message to the fans?"

And he was like, "I’m not gonna tell the fans not to boo."

Man: Are you Alex’d out?

No, you got to understand, this is a team.

You know, we’re trying to win.

I mean, the more people talk about the same thing

over and over, the more it lingers.

I mean, we’re trying to win a championship,

and we have 25 guys on our team.

On-field performance, that’s what fans do.

So every time someone now has poor performance,

I’m supposed to come out and say,

"Hey, man, stop booing him"?

It doesn’t work like that.

Feinsand: Alex, from the moment he got to New York,

always seemed like he was just trying really hard

to beat Derek Jeter.

He knew this was Derek’s team.

He knew that everybody loved Derek.

Alex just wanted to be loved the way Derek was.

Derek was the leader, you know, and he gets to crown everybody.

Derek does not say anything bad about anybody.

If he does put his stamp on it

and embrace you to be a part of the team,

we got a chance to be great,

but I don’t think Derek truly accepted him.

Torre: I think there was some concern with Cash --

maybe Derek could have said some things in support of Alex

more so than he did, but that wasn’t Derek.

You know, Derek was gonna be who he was.

Cashman: I had a conversation with Derek

to just ask him to do a self-test --

"If conflicts between you and him exist,

you know, I’m not saying it’s your fault.

I’m not saying it’s his fault.

But if there is a rift, let’s try to smooth it out."

Rodriguez: I remember him saying,

"You don’t have to convince him that we’re friends.

You don’t have to convince him that we’re good.

We don’t have to convince him that we’re good players.

Like, none of that. They asked you a question.

Be as vanilla as possible, right down the middle."

Derek: He put up numbers every single year he was with us.

Won MVP awards, right?

I mean, so they wanted me to embrace him more

to get to what result?

At one point, there was a whole joke on the beat

about the Yankees roster as the "Godfather" cast.

Joe Torre was Don Corleone,

and Posada was Sonny, the fiery temper.

People used to compare Derek to Michael Corleone.

Once you cross him, you’re done.

I won’t tell you who’s Fredo.

Sherman: So in ’06, I wrote a column late in the season

that as unselfish as Derek’s perception is,

I do think he badly wanted to win an MVP

someplace along the way.

Jeter’s numbers are exceptional.

They always were exceptional in his prime,

but they’re probably not as good as Morneau or David Ortiz.

So the extra points we always give Jeter is for intangibles.

But I thought the most intangible thing he had to do

in ’06 was to embrace A-Rod.

And he didn’t.

The...you want me to do, man?

I mean, that’s -- You know, I --

Yeah, I get it. You know, I get it.

But I don’t know what they wanted me to do, actually,

Derek, in so many ways, was, like, perfect.

I was goofy as hell. He was perfect as hell.

I’m an easy guy to cheer against.

He’s an easy guy to cheer for.

Yeah, I mean, that’s the way it rolls.

[ Crowd cheering ]

Derek: Anytime you get recognized for having success,

it’s flattering, it’s humbling, but you enjoy it.

[ Crowd cheering ]

Then it turns to people want to know everything about you.

What are you doing? Who you hanging out with?

Till what time? Who you dating?

You have to automatically assume

that everything you do is public knowledge.

Man: Have a good afternoon. Bye-bye.

Any level of privacy is somewhat eliminated.

I remember once he went to a basketball game

and he was sat next to Tyra Banks,

and the next minute, they were dating,

when, in fact, they weren’t, ’cause he went with his dad

and they just happened to be sitting together.

A lot of times they sheltered me from some of that --

a lot of that stuff.

I got the protectiveness in me.

So if somebody says something that I know is not true

or fair to my son, I’m ready to attack,

even though, you know, what am I gonna do?

But that’s your instinct, I feel, as a mom.

Matthews: You couldn’t ask him about a girlfriend.

You couldn’t ask him about anything, you know,

basically outside the field.

If you’re Derek Jeter, a star player in a market like this

with the kind of exposure that he had

and the unrelenting attention, there’s consequence.

Derek: Members of the media didn’t go around asking Bernie

what him and his wife did the night before.

They didn’t go out, ask Tino or Paul O’Neill

where they went to eat and how late they were there

and who they were with.

So I just didn’t think it was fair to ask me.

You know, I think you have to draw the line.

I drew the line at a very, very young age.

And I just wasn’t gonna let them cross it.

Derek Jeter has dated many gorgeous women,

but apparently he leaves a little gift basket

signed with memorabilia in the car

that whisks his one-night stands away the next morning.

Smith: "Page Six" is the New York Post gossip column,

which covers celebrity, society,

sports figures, Broadway, everything.

It’s the biggest gossip column in the world.

We get a call, and it’s from a girl

who says that she’d been to his place twice.

So she described two occasions when she got the memorabilia.

The first time, it was in the car on the way home.

And so it wasn’t directly given to her by Derek.

And then she went back to his apartment

another time for another event.

On the way out, she was given some Derek memorabilia.

I saw some pictures of it, but we didn’t publish them.

That came from, back then,

somebody who was a very good source.

It’s difficult because Derek wouldn’t comment on it.

And, of course, the Yankees wouldn’t comment on it.

Yeah, I read the article. Yeah, of course.

You know, when you see it, then it’s like,

"How the...do people come up with this?"

You know, basically, that’s it.

I mean, and who would believe the...

You believed it.

-It’s tacky. -It’s a little tacky.

Man: This is an exclusive "Nick and Artie."

We have the list of stuff in the gift basket.

One is a tape of Michael Kay saying, "See ya!"

I remember being at Starbucks one time,

and some random guy behind me, he says,

"Hey, just want to let you know, you know,

I’m giving out gift baskets ’cause you did."

And I turned around and said, "You’re a...idiot."

And the look on his face.

Like, he thought -- Did he think I was gonna say,

"Yeah, good job, man"?

Smith: It was just something that caught the public’s imagination

because it was slightly fun and slightly funny,

and it was a little peek into the private life of Derek

that we never really got to see.

It’s a story that became larger than life.

I mean, people keep regurgitating this story

that has never happened -- never happened.

I don’t think the article was meant to be hostile to Derek.

"Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am"

is probably a very New York Post phrase.

You’re not gonna read that in The Times.

We didn’t really want to insinuate

that he was sleeping with these women.

It was more that they were hanging out with him.

And there’s no evidence that anything romantic happened between them.

The article didn’t make him look like a bad guy.

It was more him being generous, ’cause I’m sure he gets asked

every day for memorabilia, for his signature.

[ Chuckles ] So she wasn’t insinuating it.

So she should write another article

saying what her intentions were.

That’s a good article for her to write.

That’d be great.

Raab: I don’t know what it is about fame,

what it is about celebrity that seems so attractive.

You’re in proximity to specialness.

You give all this meaning and all this gravitas

and all this power over to someone, and you say,

"Well, this person’s life has great meaning,

and my life will derive meaning from this person’s existence

and performance"?

That’s insane to me.

And yet it’s compelling beyond belief.

Crowd: Der-ek Jet-er!

Der-ek Jet-er!

Olney: As someone who’s in the public eye that much,

every day, he has dozens and dozens and dozens of people

coming up to him,

and all of them are asking him for something

or they want some part of him.

Derek: I was always uncomfortable with people staring,

for other reasons when I was younger,

but I thought it brought out the best in me

when I was playing.

But I think you have to have a place to go

outside of your public persona.

Jadakiss: Success is like a double-edged sword,

because everybody wants to be the biggest in the world

but everybody also want to be able to take their kid to school

or go get a coffee without nobody bothering them.

Anything that happens with me reflects my kids.

You know, I got an older son. He’s autistic.

Hip-hop competition or beefs could be cruel.

For so many years, I tried not to put my son in the public eye

or take pictures of him

so somebody could use that against me.

So whatever B. S. comes with me comes to my family.

Nice: Being a celebrity is one thing,

but then also being a celebrity from the Bronx

and it being recent.

To say it’s weird is an understatement

because it’s like the other day,

I had someone come up to me, and they were like,

"Oh, tell your sister happy birthday."

This person’s never met my sister.

This person does not know my sister,

but they watched our careers coming up.

You want to have a normal life.

You want to do things that other people are doing.

So it’s just finding that balance,

being around friends and family but not being in the spotlight.

Jordan: I have a small circle,

you know, in terms of how I have to live my life.

Everybody likes to let their hair down, you know, and relax

and say whatever may come to our minds at that time

and not be criticized

or be put in a position where we have to explain.

You know, that’s what privacy really is.

Just be yourself and not feel like you have to be guarded.

When I’m with Derek and his family, I’m not guarded.

I can be who I want to be, you know?

And he can do the same for me, you know?

And we feel like we protect each other in that way.

Derek: You have ways you act in front of your boys

and joking around with family and friends

that you wouldn’t do publicly, right?

Everyone does, and I always wanted to protect that.

There are still some things I’m not gonna talk about

because I think once you let the toothpaste out of the tube,

you can’t put it back in, man.

There’s only so many things that you can protect.

And I’m big on protecting my family,

on protecting my friends, on protecting my loved ones.

So I think sometimes, man, you just need a break.

My father’s black, my mother’s white,

and people think I’m Spanish.

So, you know, they don’t know what to think.

You were telling me, that’s the question

you get asked very often, right, most often.

Right, it’s the most often question.

Taylor: Derek Jeter’s media situation is super unique,

not in just that he played in New York,

he played for the Yankees, but that he’s biracial,

he’s from the Midwest.

I don’t think anybody ever asked him about,

you know, growing up biracial.

It was never brought up in the clubhouse at all.

[ Crowd cheering ]

Taylor: There’s this thing with biracial people

where there’s an ownership that happens.

Most of us are like, "Okay,

if you say you’re black, you’re black."

But that doesn’t happen on the other side.

It’s, "If you got a black parent, you black.

You’re not one of us."

Rhoden: And he probably had to negotiate that his entire life,

as a lot of biracial people do.

You know, you love both your parents.

But in the United States,

that is that shellacked by racism.

We’re always wanting you to choose sides.

It was matter of fact.

You know, if you’re black, you’re black, right?

How I was raised was, you know, "You’re a black man.

That’s how society’s gonna view you."

Taylor: You may not be black enough for certain black people

and you may not be white enough for certain white people.

Reynolds; Talk about a perception.

The perception on Derek Jeter is that, well, Derek wasn’t black.

What?

Bryant: I don’t think the media ever identified him as white,

but they didn’t look at him, necessarily, as a black player

the way they looked at Reggie or Winfield.

Taylor: I think Derek Jeter is not considered on the list

of great black Major League players

because he’s biracial.

I think there is reluctance,

hesitation, maybe a little bit of fear in naming him that.

It confronts the media, their own thinking.

It confronts what their perception

of a black ballplayer is.

Bryant: I asked other people about Derek.

I asked as many black players that played with him,

and every one of them was like, "Yeah, Derek was down."

Sheff was a little different. Sheff’s hard-core.

Kremer: Gary Sheffield asserts that white and black players

are coached differently

and says he has witnessed it firsthand.

What teams have you been on where you’ve not seen

white and black players treated equally? Yankees.

The Yankees’ most prominent player is black.

Who? Derek Jeter?

Derek Jeter’s black and white.

He is half black and half white. Exactly.

What’s the significance of that to you?

It’s really no significance.

It’s just you ain’t all the way black.

Sheffield: Well, when I -- I made the statement

about Joe Torre treating black players different.

I don’t believe Joe Torre is racist.

You know, I never said he was racist.

I just told you what my experience was.

When Tony Womack, Kenny Lofton, and Tom Gordon

goes in the office and not get the results

that they was looking for,

the first thing came after that is, "Derek Jeter’s black."

And I said, "Derek Jeter’s not all the way black."

So now it was like you trying to prove to me Derek Jeter’s black.

That’s basically how I took it.

I have no problems with Sheff.

At the time, though, it was like, "Well,

why am I in the middle of this?"

I got no idea why I was in the middle of it,

but I think he was -- he was backed into a corner.

Why Derek Jeter’s in this conversation?

Because he’s not gonna get treated like us

because of his stature.

Derek has always been a mainstay.

So don’t bring him into my conversation.

And so that’s basically what I lashed out at.

[ Indistinct talking ]

My oldest son, his mother’s white.

And so for me to say that,

I wasn’t thinking I was saying anything to hurt anybody.

When I found out that it bothered him,

I wanted to reach out to him and his mom and dad face-to-face

and just let them know what I really meant.

Derek: He reached out to me, he reached out to my family

and spoke to them

and he said there was no ill will directed towards me.

Taylor: Historically speaking,

the stories of African-American players and Latino players

get told through the lens of a white writer,

and that also changes the way things are perceived.

White owners, white coaches, white media,

white season ticket holders, black player.

That’s professional sports.

This is the filter through which

you as a professional athlete have to navigate.

The beauty and the curse of baseball

is that baseball is rooted in its traditions.

It is rooted in its traditions

more than any of the other sports.

Announcer: In the top half of the second,

Jackie Robinson leads off for Brooklyn.

Bryant: It’s the first sport where integration

was in front of the country.

No matter what people say about Jackie Robinson

and no matter what people say about baseball,

black players in baseball

have always believed that the sport doesn’t want them.

When you think about the changing of the sport,

it’s no different than the changing in the country.

People are threatened.

Carig: It’s a sport that is defined

by its almost, like, militant attitude about change

in that it doesn’t like it.

The sport was so quick to label everything a distraction

that wasn’t baseball itself.

Talking about something that required bandwidth and nuance,

like social justice or race relations

or where we are as a country on those fronts,

was just, like, so foreign.

New York has had as many horrible,

terrible encounters between black people and police.

The number of people shot to death by police

or who die in police custody has gone up dramatically.

Reporter: Just 22 years old, Amadou Diallo was shot to death

by police officers in a hail of 41 bullets

as he stood in the driveway of his Bronx home.

Reporter #2: 23-year-old Sean Bell was gunned down

just hours before he was supposed to marry

the mother of his two children.

[ Indistinct chanting ]

Reporter #3: True to their word, young and old

hit the streets of Harlem for a second day,

expressing their outrage over the acquittal

of three detectives in the Sean Bell shooting.

Hoch: During Derek’s time as a player,

these were not topics you heard in a clubhouse.

It was, "This is a baseball world.

The real world is outside.

And you leave that at the clubhouse door."

Back during my career, players stayed away from it, man.

Stayed away from it because they didn’t want to be a problem.

I mean, you talk about race, religion, and politics,

figure you’re in a no-win situation

and you’re going to upset some fans,

you’re gonna upset some organizations.

And I think even more so than that,

you’re gonna upset some people in your own clubhouse.

Randolph: And even when we talk about certain things

that we feel that unjust,

you know, you just talk about it.

You can’t really do anything about it.

And it’s frustrating because you you feel like

you don’t have a voice and you don’t have anybody

who’s really got your back.

In my time there, we never discouraged the players

from speaking their mind and speaking openly.

But there was an understanding

that sort of went with the culture of the New York Yankees

that you minded your place.

Taylor: I definitely think it’s fear-based.

Those journalists were also concerned

about the owners of their papers getting upset

by them printing something about race.

I think they were concerned about their readership

being concerned about them printing about race,

because Major League Baseball’s audience is mostly white

and no one wants to hear that they’re...

Like, no one wants to hear

that the things that they think stink,

that they affect people.

Jones: When you take me back to a clubhouse

in front of captain of the Yankees Derek Jeter,

we stuck to baseball not because it was some directive.

It was what we knew.

That’s how we looked at Derek Jeter.

Matthews: I’ll give you a couple of reasons

why Derek wasn’t asked questions about social issues and all.

First of all, it almost seemed

as if he had set the ground rules.

Not that he told us, "Don’t ask me about these things,"

but the non-committal nature of his answers.

You would think, "Should I ask Jeter this?

Will he even answer it?

Eh, he probably won’t answer it, so don’t bother."

That’s number one.

Number two, Derek Jeter does not identify racially.

I don’t think he does.

You know, he just never --

He just seemed to be racially neutral.

Derek Jeter was almost colorless.

I mean, not only physically,

but also, you know, in the way he spoke.

Who the...are you? That’s what I would say.

You know what I mean? Seriously, you think about it.

How the...does he know?

That’s the first thing I would say -- "How does he know?"

Because he just admitted he doesn’t ask the question.

So if you don’t ask the question, how do you know?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard

someone being defined as colorless.

I don’t -- I don’t think.

I don’t -- I’m just trying to --

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that.

Colorless?

Interesting.

[ Laughing ] I don’t even know how to answer that.

I’ve never heard someone say

that they thought someone was colorless.

[ Laughs ]

Don’t know who he is. Don’t care to know who he is.

You know, I don’t -- You know, I don’t know if anybody

with any kind of sense could come up with something

as dumb as that, you know, really.

He doesn’t know anything about Derek.

Matthews: Why do we go to an athlete

to ask him about a social issue?

I mean, do we ask the president of the United States

about an athletic issue?

Do we do that? No, we don’t, right?

I mean, you try to keep people in their lane.

That just sounds like an old- school mentality right there.

That’s what we’re trying to change.

That, man --

"Stay in your lane"? Come on, man.

What lane is his lane?

Like, what enables him to be the one

that can talk about it and we can’t?

Winfield: You grow up in America, you’re African-American,

there’s every day of your life you have to think about,

"Why am I treated differently?

Why do I not have the same opportunities?

Why do I have to be taught that you have to be better

than your white counterpart

just to have an equal opportunity?"

Sheffield: The fans start letting me have it in Milwaukee.

Here I am, a 19-year-old kid.

Imagine what you was doing at 19 years old.

I’m having to fight off all of this.

And all I wanted to do was play baseball.

A day doesn’t go by you don’t think about,

"What is going to happen to me today

that wouldn’t happen to the average American?"

[ Crowd cheering ]

Bryant: If Derek Jeter was out there

talking about the issues that black people were facing,

the public would have turned on him, as well,

because the public turns on everybody

who calls out American racism.

The black tax is the price you pay.

And it’s one of the reasons

why a lot of black players don’t speak out,

because not everybody can afford it.

Jackson: They create such a terrible impression

if you make a note about them and it has to do with race.

There is no time that’s right.

I can tell you that because of my age.

I’ve waited to be 75 to say some things.

You know, the reason why people speak up

is because they have experiences on issues

that you may not have experience in.

But black players in the league, sometimes if you are vocal,

they’ll say, "Well, this guy’s a problem in the clubhouse."

Look at Colin Kaepernick, right?

You speak up, his career is gone.

Sometimes they said, "Well, you know, you don’t speak up enough.

You don’t do this. You don’t do that."

There are various ways

that we get our positive messages out to people.

Sharlee: So Derek and my father

started the Turn 2 Foundation his rookie year,

and it was to support youth

staying away from drugs and alcohol

and to move towards healthy lifestyles.

We’ve shifted in the last 15 years

to doing more social-change activities

with our high school students and really getting them involved

at a young age in taking an active role

in making change in their community.

Charles: Derek has been talking about, "I am a role model.

I’m investing in people being role models

so they can go back in their communities

and be spokespersons and role models

for kids in their communities."

In my community, I used to go to an after-school

and a summer-camp program, so to take what I’ve learned

from the Jeters and place it inside a curriculum

would also help me influence others.

Derek: I have a leadership program that promotes social change,

and we have conferences every year.

This is throughout my entire career.

I’ve been on panels with Rachel Robinson

and worked with the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

Now, can you say, "Can so-and-so do more?

Can I do more?" We can always do more.

Everyone can always do more, right?

But you tackle these issues from many different angles.

No matter how you look at it, you’re still doing good.

Reporter: The Joe Torre era with the Yankees is over.

The longtime manager of the team

will not return for a 13th season.

Feinsand: Even though they had had so much success early,

they hadn’t had that success over the past few years.

First-round loss in ’05, first-round loss in ’06.

The midges in ’07,

with another first-round loss against Cleveland.

Remember doing a story with Joe Torre

where he said that ’07, hands down,

been his toughest year just in general.

Torre: I’d been there 12 years.

In retrospect, maybe I didn’t know how to say goodbye,

and I don’t think they did, either.

You know, they were sort of stuck with me.

Did I feel it was the best decision for both sides?

No, not at all. But it’s not my decision.

You know, Mr. T is my second father.

You know, I grew up with him.

He was almost like a level of comfort for me

because he was there when I first came up.

He’s someone that I relied heavily on.

Sharlee: He really cared about Derek.

I think there is no Derek where he is today

and the Yankees where they were at that time without Mr. Torre.

I just felt it wasn’t his fault.

Just me and Derek, we felt like

we had something to do with his firing,

we caused it, you know.

If we would have won here and there,

you know, he’d probably still be around.

So we felt, you know -- we felt the blame.

Olney: By the time Derek gets into his early to mid 30s,

people are being critical of Derek.

There was always that conversation

about whether or not Derek was overrated.

Man: I know Derek won the Gold Glove.

I don’t think he’s that great defensively.

Announcer: Derek has made some sketchy throws

from shortstop this year.

He has not had as many true throws as he usually does.

Sherman: With Derek, there’s 10, 12, 15 years he’s unimpeachable.

He’s one of the best players in the sport,

one of the best shortstops of all time.

But at some point, it was clear

he wasn’t a very good defensive shortstop anymore.

Announcer: Grounder to short.

Past a diving Jeter and into center field.

The Yankees had an inning-ending double play,

and Jeter threw it away.

And the Red Sox have a run.

You know, shortstop’s a demanding position,

and with age, obviously he became less of a defender

at that position, to the point where, you know,

in our internal conversations with field staff and pro scouts

and even analytics, the numbers and the assessments

were that it was a problem.

And our field staff was allegedly dealing with it,

but they were afraid to confront the superstar.

Derek: Cash reached out and said he wanted to have a conversation with me.

And he said, "Look, you need to make some adjustments

to your workouts, your agility, your speed."

One of the reasons why Cash and I butted heads a little bit,

he was giving me information

that I was not hearing from anyone else,

and I thought he was full of it.

He’s looking at me like I got three heads.

It caught him off guard.

He was like, "What’s wrong with my defense?"

But Derek being the great champion,

I remember he paused and he says, "You mean to tell me

that there’s a large population of people on the ground

that have a problem with my defense,

and they were unwilling to address it with me?"

And we’re trying to compete for a championship,

and we only have these God-given abilities on borrowed time

before you age out.

All Derek wants to be is the greatest of all time

and compete to win every day.

And in hindsight, I feel bad that he was denied,

you know, being the best version of himself for a period of time

because people were afraid to tell him the truth.

Derek: That off-season, I switched trainers

and I worked on my agility, I worked on my speed,

and I worked on my first step.

It was the first time that I really started

working out differently, so I focused on it.

You know, it’s one of those things.

I wanted to prove to people I could get better.

But the focus on winning started when I was young.

You can blame my dad, you know,

because he used to beat me at absolutely everything we did.

And, you know, his lesson he was teaching me is life’s not fair.

If you want to win, you want to come out on top,

you have to work at it.

Before I turned professional with the Yankees,

I never won anything.

High school teams didn’t win.

Little League teams didn’t win.

So I look at it as you put this work in,

the amount of work, the years, the preparation.

If you don’t win, you’re wasting time.

And we all run out of time at some point.

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