Derek Jeter EXTENDED Conversation: New doc, social media & more! | The Captain on ESPN & ESPN+

i know you've been avoiding me yeah yeah definitely absolutely you ready okay so what made you decide now to tell your story in this documentary it's a very very good question hannah you know i um right around the time i got the call for the hall of fame i said you know maybe i should just start filming this just in case i never assumed i was going to get a call but i wanted to film it so i could share it with my kids because my girls are so young and then for the first time really i had a chance to reflect on my career because during my career i it was always what's next what's next what's next and um i guess that's a character flaw in minds but i i i decided i wanted to reflect on my career so i don't know if there's ever you'd ever know if the time is right but uh it seemed to me i was ready to do it and i didn't know what i was getting myself into but i'm glad i did it you didn't know what you were getting yourself into how oh there's a lot of things that you forget you know a lot of things that you forget we talked about this i mean i sat down for over 30 hours and you know talked about my career from 1992 up until this past year so i forget things that happened two weeks ago and i got to think back and and and tell stories from a long long time ago but it was a fun it was a fun exercise to go through and uh you know i think people are going to enjoy it sometimes when you're forced to sit back and reflect like that you actually might have a revelation or two about yourself was there something that you took away from all of that i just think how your how your mindset changes over time i think everyone evolves and they grow up over time you know the only thing that i could do during this documentary is to let you know how i felt and how i dealt with things at the time now your mind changes you look back and you say hey look there's some things maybe i should have done a little bit differently but that's what got me through new york i played new york for 20 years and and how i dealt with it worked and um you know like you probably heard me say there was no blueprint for success in new york for 20 years so i was just sort of winging it yeah that white hot spotlight and right away what four world series wins in five years just just seemingly right off the bat and and you were in that limelight immediately thrust right into it so how did you handle it successfully well i think it starts with the people you have around you you know and um having priorities and my number one priority was what we did on the field and was winning so i never let anything get in the way of that now i had my fair share of fun right everyone did i mean 20 years old i was in new york like you said we won four world series my first five years and you know we were the toast of the town so uh yeah it was a lot of fun in there as well but nothing ever came in the way of of trying to win playing in a game seven what was your mentality absolute same it was in game one in game one of the season so i took i i approached every game like it was the most important game in the world and then once you get to a game seven your mindset doesn't change so i think a lot of times you get people when they get into postseason forget about a game seven just post season in general now all of a sudden everything's different and you put added pressure on yourself so i treated every game like it was the same what about in terms of and now you're we're getting to know you you know you already know me you already know well i do okay but some of the fans right like they're they're gonna be they're gonna be fascinated by this because at the time and you said you were doing you know whatever you had to to survive and thrive during those years maybe maybe a bit closed off right steering away from any controversy things like that was that part of your nature or was that part of being in new york and doing what you think it's i think it's a little bit of both i think you know my my job was to limit distractions you know and i think the longer and the more you talk about certain situations or scenarios it just becomes a story that lingers on so i i never shied away from talking about i was in front of my locker before and after every single game i would address things once and i just wouldn't talk about it again because that was my way of dealing with it i didn't want it to be a distraction so how i handled especially how i handled the media i mean it was by design do you remember the day that george steinbrenner called you in to name you captain i do um i thought i was in trouble we were in cincinnati and um you know there's a story of you know me being this huge party animal and the boss getting on me about going out at night at a birthday party and i explained it all in the documentary but um i said you thought he thought he was calling you i dislocated my shoulder i came back to new york first week back in new york i missed the first month and a half and i took all my teammates out and on the front page of the papers it's four am derek's out on the town right so then i get a phone call that you know the boss wants to talk to me and that's what he named me captain so i thought i was in trouble and ended up being named three for a loop there he did he did he probably looked at it and said hey this guy doesn't care what i say so name him captain what do you think he saw on you to give you that honor oh man i you know i think it starts with we had the same mindset right and it's winning is the only thing that matters you know we're a little bit different because he's an old football guy and and you know he you know i let me say this right away he didn't understand over a course of 162 games that you may lose one right um i have the mindset every single game you take every time you take the field every game you play you have an opportunity to win that particular game but i understood you may lose some but he didn't understand that so all the matter of perspective yeah exactly so i think um you know we have we always had a great deal of respect for each other we had a close relationship started with the whole michigan ohio state rivalry and you know i'm a michigan guy who's ohio state guy we used to get together you know every off season and talk about the team so i have nothing but great things to say about the boss when you think about those years as captain so 2003 until you retired in 2014 and the fact that your name is synonymous with captain i mean there are a lot of captains and a lot of sports of a lot of teams but but your name that is your moniker what does that mean to you man it means a lot you talk about you know the title of captain in the yankee organization is not one that's thrown around lightly you know i i took that with a great deal of pride um and then we had a lot of success too i mean it's even if you're not a baseball fan you probably watch the playoffs in the world series and a year in and year out we were there and uh i don't you know a lot of perks come with playing in new york especially when you have some success here what does it mean to you to have your number retired what is that like who man uh it's not something you think about during your career i know all the great players that have gone through the yankee organization and i had the last single digit number and when that was retired i mean you talk about the utmost honor um it's great to know anytime you see a yankee jersey with a number two on it it's mine and and no one else will have a chance to wear it so it's it's really an unbelievable feeling if you had to put your yankee legacy in your own words what would you say during my time we won more than anyone else it's all that mattered that was it we yeah and winning yeah that's what it's all about what does that take though personally to have that sustained level of success as a leader uh i think it's focus i think it's it's uh you know i it started with me in terms of you know i never sit down and say oh i had a lot of success but every time i took the field every season going into spring training i felt like i was planning to keep my job you know that's how the boss you know he instilled that in us you're out there trying to play for your job and keep your job yeah you really felt that way you know oh yeah yeah no no you never felt like i got this oh god no yeah i knew every time we drafted a shortstop you know what i mean so i would check to see what guys were doing coming up but yeah you play like you know you're trying to keep your job because in new york in this town for this organization if you don't do your job they'll get someone else and there was that gap right so the the world series run right at the start of your career and then you go from 2000 and the next world series comes in 2009. what about that interim what about sustaining that drive and everything that you had to do to get back there what was the most challenging part of that time oh man it's it's uh you know baseball is a sport where you deal with failure right i mean you fail 70 of the time i think you know the only other profession is a weather man right where you keep your job failing that much um so we were yeah we were in we won the world series in 2000 we went back in 2003 and then we didn't get back to 2009 and it's every year we felt as though we had a team to get to the world series but you got to get a lot of breaks there has to be a lot of breaks for you to get to a world series let alone win one but it's frustrating and you know a lot of long off seasons preparing for the next year you know you never want to be comfortable with losing and if it didn't bother you um then you're just playing for the wrong team so i i knew when we had guys that that cared more about maybe personal statistics as opposed to um to winning and uh you got to have enough people that the number one focus is on the field and winning championships man how did you battle against that because personal statistics mean money right and and that's can be what you're kind of winning but soda's winning you know we got paid from the boss for winning you know i never led the league in home runs and never led the leagues and rbis but you know i was kept around our group was kept around because we won every year so yeah i get it i mean you know statistics is what gets you paid but winning is what you're remembered for how do you combat against that as a leader and in a sport where you know numbers are so paramount how do you get everybody else to buy in to the way that you're thinking yeah well i mean look the better numbers that individuals put up the better your team is going to be but the thing that bothered me was when players would put up statistics or have great games we'd lose and they have a smile on their face and everything's fine um but i look i i have nothing to complain about i played on some great teams i mean obviously we won five times but we had teams that i felt as zoe was capable of winning but we just it just didn't happen so we didn't have too many of those guys that were strictly focused on individual statistics so i was spoiled in that sense but then also we had a lot of leaders on our team that were there for a long time and if you have enough people pulling in the same direction you know everyone else follows do you still follow the team closely i i get a chance to do now a little bit more than when i was working down in miami um a great team this year looks like so you know they have right now it looks like they have as good of an opportunity as anyone but like i say you got to get hot at the right time is there a particular player that has caught your eye or your imagination well i think everyone watches what aaron does you know he's handled himself probably as well as you can in this city you know obviously he performs that's number one you gotta you gotta perform but um from everything i've i've seen in what i've heard uh you know he couldn't handle himself any better when you think about a sustained excellence um and and being a leader for that many years i'm wondering what your thoughts are about the guy who rented your house in tampa well tom is trying to do it i think it's 44. i tried to get him to buy it but when he first rented it he said he didn't know how long he was going to continue to play so he could have bought it and then he could sell it future because he never knows when he's going to go home 44 going for an eighth championship yeah he's fun to watch michigan guy so you know i follow tom from from his ann arbor days so uh yeah it's been fun to watch that's right what do you what do you think that it takes to to still be a leader for that amount of time well one you have to perform and i think when you perform people ultimately look at you as as being a leader you know tom doesn't make excuses right what's one thing you don't want to say or have a leader that makes excuses and then you also don't have to talk about being a leader you know i think you know you want people to respect you and i think if they respect you enough then ultimately they may follow uh tom seemed to get a lot more fun when he left new england and went to tampa kind of got in my house yeah got your house no got in my house right once you get in my house you have more fun see is it like the jeter vibe in there is that that yeah i'm gonna take credit for it yeah so that was it that was it it wasn't leaving the patriots so i was getting into my house yeah it was the spirit of derrick dieter and you are i mean making history now let's see may 31st 2022 let's mark it on our calendars the day that you entered into social media unbelievable what took you so long i tried as much as i possibly could to maintain a certain sense of privacy throughout my career which was needed right it was absolutely needed during my career um when i retired uh you know one of the first things we did was my partner jamie messler and i launched the players tribune and that was giving players a platform to tell their stories basically similar to what social media is and and ultimately letting them know that you know their platforms are powerful um they're almost focusing their voices are possible this happened back in 2014 yes so we're focused on that building that platform for all players and then um you know got down to miami i had my head down focused day-to-day and and people have been trying to get me to start social media for a long time and ultimately i said hey look might as well use the platform that i have and share some exciting projects that i have coming some of the good work and doing with my foundation and some of the great partnerships that i have and and um you know just see a different side of me i guess so to speak so i guess i i ran out of excuses your bio says sleep deprived dad of three girls pretty much describes your life these days yeah it does yes yes uh almost five um three and a half and six months so you know we were talking about doing this interview and all the distractions it's all white noise to me because i just hear yelling and screaming and crying all the time so yeah i do not sleep much at all and i think a large part of that is due to the three girls are there certain books that you read with your kids or songs any any favorites and kanto's soundtrack is big in my house right now yes and frozen i've seen frozen a hundred times a hundred literally frozen and frozen too yeah wow yep no know all the words to the songs well i'm not going to tell you i do because you asked me to sing it but no i would not do that to you i do i would not i would not yes so so yeah in kanto and frozen i i don't think you're alone in that regard i know right they were able to be at your hall of fame ceremony you said one of the reasons you wanted to do this project is so they'll have some frame of reference later yeah right um what do you want them to know or really appreciate about your career yeah i think it's just um just in terms of having a dream dream big you know because i think you you probably ask most professional athletes i mean not all of them yes most professional athletes when they were growing up they probably dreamt of being a professional athlete and people keep telling me you can't do it right yeah same thing happened when i was growing up it's it's you know teachers telling my parents you need to put real thoughts in your kid's head he's never gonna make it to you know play shortstop for the new york yankees that's all i ever wanted to do um so i i just want my girls to just understand that i you know like i said before i found something that i was passionate about right and and i worked harder than everyone else or just as hard as everyone else as anyone else and i didn't make any excuses and i was going to do whatever it took in order to reach my dream and and i want them to understand that journey right and that you're going to fail along the way i had a lot of failures you know coming up through the minor leagues and even playing here in new york i mean you have times when you fail but uh everyone fails you know any successful person it's like one of the first things i ask people that have been very successful in their profession is tell me your biggest failure and how did you overcome it because no matter who you are you've had to deal with it okay so you just set me up there okay tell me your biggest failure and how you overcame it my biggest failure i grew up in kalamazoo michigan which is a small town and it's really not at least at the time wasn't a hotbed for baseball players right usually the better players in high school come from warm weather climates whether it's california or texas or florida and so i basically throughout little league in high school hadn't really struggled right and and when i signed professionally being completely overmatched and not knowing failing for the first time and you feel as though everyone's looking at you uh so i think learning to deal with with failure especially in this sport which everyone's gonna have to deal with it at some point but being completely overmatched was was was something that i had to overcome early into my career yeah i mean you came in 17 years old and struggled for a bit right yeah we don't have to talk about it i spent 30 hours talking about oh you did we're good just watch the film watch the film i try to forget about my struggles man how did you deal with with scrutiny and and with um you know everything that you were doing sort of being dissected and even even dealing with just the fans themselves and some of the kinds of things that that you would hear at times uh scrutiny criticism i could care less that's just how i dealt with it you know i could care less what you say or what you think i know it's true and that's how i looked at it i mean if you paid attention to that's why it's you know i have the utmost respect for a lot of athletes now playing in the social media world you know i used to go to games and not read the papers you know i i would have espn on mute right because you just didn't want to hear comments right so you didn't let any of that even get i tried to get inside i knew what was being said because i was asked questions so i i knew what was coming but i just didn't want anything to enter in my mind and i i just didn't criticism didn't bother me you know it didn't bother me i was just out to prove people wrong so um i didn't focus on it like my mind just goes to the positives how do you feel about the state of baseball is the game doing enough to stay relevant to stay popular yeah it's it's challenging like anyone that doesn't say that that baseball is challenged right now is not telling you the truth uh you know kids are into instant gratification right they want short clips they don't want to sit down in a seat next to someone talk to the person on their left and the person on their right for three and a half hours and watch a game so um yeah i think there has to be some changes you know it has to be a destination an entertainment destination it's not just strictly about wins and losses on the field for most fans now you can't say that here in new york new york there's it's wins and losses but yeah we better keep that no nobody heard that yeah no but there you know there are certain cities and towns where it is strictly about the performance on the field but in most places people want to be entertained so uh yeah this it's it's challenging for the sport right now but but i'm confident that uh you know it'll turn around is there anything that you're seeing that's being experimented with that that you think might be a great innovation man i you know what i liked was seven inning double headers i didn't think i ever would but i like the seven inning double headers i mean um short you know obviously the game time is shortened um i think they do have to figure out a way and not i think everyone focuses so much on how long the games are is just need more action within the game um but i like those seven inning games yeah timers what about that ah i don't know i mean i swung at the first pitch most of the time anyway so i wasn't up there very very long well done yeah so yeah i wouldn't have had an issue with it so you were in miami for four and a half years um as a minority owner and ceo so an incredible jump to the other side of baseball to the business side and you left in february how did that happen and why did that well i think it it's just like the statement i made you know i i think that the direction of the organization had changed and that was not what i signed up for and um you know you have to believe in in the direction especially if you're going to be the forward face you know i just couldn't move on and and if if i didn't agree with the direction that the organization was going so you think that's something you might go back towards gravitate towards again do you want to be involved in the sport of baseball do you want to stay i mean i love the game yeah i mean i really do love the game so um yeah i think it's the greatest game in the world um so yeah at some point i'm sure i'll do something you

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Keywords: derek jeter, derek jeter the captain, derek jeter interview, derek jeter new york yankees, derek jeter extended conversation, derek jeter extended convo, derek jeter hannah storm, ESPN, MLB on ESPN, new york yankees, ESPN+, espn plus, derek jeter marlins, derek jeter social media, derek jeter doc, derek jeter documentary, derek jeter yankees, derek jeter the captain documentary, Derek Jeter EXTENDED Conversation: New doc, social media & more! | The Captain on ESPN & ESPN+

Id: xuNzgE4Ce5E

Length: 22min 13sec (1333 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 26 2022