With the announcement of Derek Jeters retirement yesterday, several questions came to mind. One was that is was unusual that such a private person would want such a public farewell. The other was how can you play, thrive and survive 20 years in the media capital of the world. The NY Posts Joel Sherman had the same questions. Derek Jeter is the star we knew so well — and not at all. He hid in plain sight. He talked often and said little. He was private even while being public. This has made Jeter both frustrating and admirable to cover. He never let you in: frustrating. He never let you in: admirable. Jeter had a code he has followed to his baseball end, announcing his retirement on his terms, in as close to a leak-proof way as is possible in 2014 — on his Facebook page with essentially only his die-before-they-would-betray-him confidants aware of what he was readying to do. He was never going to put his reputation, status or off-field endeavors — commercial and charitable — in peril by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. I have interviewed Jeter on hundreds, probably thousands, of occasions over the past two decades. The first one-on-one was over lunch in a Bennigan’s in Tampa. He was a teenager. But he already had all the touchstones in place that would be there in his 20s and 30s. He made eye contact. He was polite. Whether natural or learned, his answers were distilled of controversy. I wanted to know more about him and never felt I truly got in. He was warmly cold — receptive to the questions, guarded in the answers. In the end, I knew what everyone knew. He loved two items above all else: his family and being the Yankees shortstop. His adoration and respect for those things were overt. Everything else you merely glimpsed or saw through others. It allowed him to keep a pristine image, shun scandal, rise above an age when so much is spilled into the public swill for dissection and ridicule. Fans loved him for what they thought they knew, when I actually think it was because of what they never learned, because Jeter would not reveal or because he lived a careful existence. In two decades, Jeter has gone off the record with me one time. Once. To tell me the name of a player who big-leagued him in the minors. That was it. He was never going to risk putting his private thoughts or his private life in the hands of others. He couldn’t stop you from clicking a picture of him with Mariah Carey or Minka Kelly, but he wasn’t going to explain their status. You could get the entire clubhouse to discuss the temperature in the Jeter-Alex Rodriguez relationship, but not Jeter. He was so often compared and contrasted with Rodriguez, and he separated himself from his frenemy in two vital ways. 1) He was anti-reckless. In words or deeds, he would not put himself in harm’s way. 2) Jeter simply is the most self-confident athlete I have ever covered, which is quite a title because he played side-by-side with Mariano Rivera. This is where he was most admirable. Everyone cares to some degree what the public or media thinks. But Jeter cared less. More important, he never betrayed what was important to him to curry a positive spin. He knew some reporters better and longer than others, but did not play favorites. He had a sweet spot for responses — non-controversial, non-condescending — and he stayed in that sweet spot no matter how many waves of questions came year after year. He would not go out of his way to self-aggrandize by pointing out a subtle maneuver on or off the field that could have been missed. You would find out often much later about what he said in a meeting or when he pulled a player aside or about an injury that he had played through, and when confronted Jeter would not confirm, not deny, simply sidestep, move along. He didn’t need approval from the universe, just his family and those that meant the most to him. In an open-book age, he had the fortitude to keep his closed. So mostly what we think we know about Jeter is what we project on him and believe to be true — and, by the way, probably is. He is loyal. Tough. Principled. He loved to play, to compete. He didn’t need to tell you he loved big moments, which is actually often a way to try to publicly mask fear. He loved big moments, embraced them, looked forward to them, and probably excelled so often because of that. He has been a great baseball player, one of the outliers who does help make a team better by being so consistent in temperament in a sport that grinds day-by-day. He makes everyone better because he infuses his confidence that he will succeed, the team will prosper, find a way. He announces his retirement now and gets to control his message again. He doesn’t gamble holding it all season and having the secret trickle out. He doesn’t risk that he has a poor season and then it looks as if he is being pushed from the game rather than exiting on his own terms. And he gets now a season-long farewell from a sport that admires him because it senses all those qualities he never bragged about, never needed to state publicly to stroke his ego, fan some fame. Jeter lives by his code to the end — and, as always, it serves him brilliantly.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 19:13:25 +0000
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