Derek Jeter Not only was he an outstanding professional on the field, where he scored more than 3,000 hits, 14 All-Star picks, five Golden Gloves, five World Series championship rings and would go on to become one of the New Yorkers. The greatest Yankees ever played the game, but also far from the ballpark.
Yes, the Yankee captain loves to party, but he has a knack for keeping his name out of the tabloid headlines. “Whatever I was doing, I tried to hide it,” he said in Captaina seven-part documentary that premieres July 18 on ESPN.
Directed by Randy Wilkins and produced by Spike Lee, Captain emphasizes how Jeter has been able to maintain his off-field image through a series of clever tricks – deliberately creating a vanilla public figure by answering all the questions from the world. communication while answering very little. He also artfully avoided a number of precarious situations — including a nightclub shooting on December 27, 1999, which caused Diddyhis then girlfriend Jennifer Lopezand rapper Shyne.
“We were at a place called Cronies for a bite to eat and Puff hit me on the Skytel Motorola pager, and he said, ‘Me and J. Lo will be here tonight. This is where we’re going: The New York Club… Bring Derek here tonight,” recalls Mike Evans, a close friend of Jeter. “And Derek said, do you know any men? I am going to sleep. I have a game tomorrow. We missed the passing one inch. “
“We got lucky,” Jeter adds in the film. “We could have been right there, so my name will be part of the story.”
Jeter is often frustrated with the New York tabloid media, believing they are guilty of adopting a double standard.
“Members of the media — they don’t ask Bernie [Williams] what he and his wife did the night before. They don’t go out and ask Tino [Martinez] or Paul O’Neill where they went to eat, how late they got there and who they went with,” explains Jeter. “So I just don’t think it’s fair to ask me. You know, I think you have to draw the line. I drew this line when I was very young and I will not let them cross it”.
Despite dating a bunch of famous beauties — Mariah Carey, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson, Minka Kelly and Adriana Lima among them — No. 2 has managed to keep the media within reach when it comes to his personal life. That all changed in 2011, when The New York Post ran a story accompanied by a prominent headline, “JETER’S BOOTY HAULS.” The article alleges that Jeter was “filled with beauties in his Trump World Tower beauty pad – and then coldly sent them home alone with gift baskets of autographed memorabilia.” ” — and accidentally gave the same woman an identical smile.
“You know, you see it, and then it’s like, how did one come up with this? Basically, you know. And who will believe this? “
“Derek let the girls stay with him at his apartment in New York, and then he took the car to take them home the next day. Waiting in his car is a gift basket containing signed memorabilia from Jeter, usually an autographed baseball,” a friend of the woman told. parcel. “This summer, he ended a relationship with a girl he had dated before, but Jeter seemed to have forgotten the first time around and gave her the identical parting gift, one Gift basket with a signed Derek Jeter baseball. “
In CaptainEmily Smith, New York gossip expert and writer, explains that they received a call from a woman who “described twice when she received the memento,” and that she “had See some pictures about it, but we haven’t published them. But she later admitted that it was never confirmed that the woman was only visiting Jeter or sleeping with him.
While Jeter chose to ignore the story at the time, he’s finally addressed the mythical rumor that has followed him for more than a decade in the film.
“Yes, I read the article. Well, of course,” Jeter said. “You know, you see it, and then it’s like, how did one come up with this? Basically, you know. And who will believe this? And you believed it! ”
He continued: “I remember one time I was at a Starbucks and there was some random guy standing behind me and he was like, ‘Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I’m giving out gift baskets for you. did so.’ And I turned around and said, ‘You’re an idiot!’ and the look on his face… like, did he think I was going to say, ‘Yeah, well done, man!’
“It’s a story that gets bigger than a lifetime. People go on spreading this story that never happened. Never happened,” he concluded.
