How did Jeter avoid bad press? No comment
CLINTON, N.Y. — For 20 years, Derek Jeter avoided the embarrassing headlines generated by, say, his former Yankee teammate Alex Rodriguez, an accomplishment The Captain says he can trace to perfecting two responses to media questions.
“There’s two things you can always say to the media: one is, you have no comment. There’s no follow-up to that,” Jeter told a packed audience of over 5,000 people Wednesday night at tiny Hamilton College in upstate New York. “The second thing I think most people get in trouble with, they’re afraid to say, ‘I don’t know.’ If you ask me a question and I say, ‘I don’t know,’ how are you going to follow it up?”
Later during the Q&A Jeter had with former major leaguer Harold Reynolds, now an MLB Network and Fox analyst, Jeter proved his point when he asked if he was using audio equipment correctly. A female audience member shouted, “Take it off!”
“It’s too cold up here at Hamilton College,” Jeter joked.
That prompted Reynolds to ask Jeter what it was like to be a sex symbol. “I don’t know,” said Jeter. The retired Yankee captain is a de facto member of the media now, following the launch of his website, The Players’ Tribune, in partnership with Thomas Tull, a Hollywood executive and chairman of Legendary Pictures
who is a Hamilton graduate. Jeter reiterated to the crowd that with the website he is “in no way, shape or form trying to take away from mainstream media.”
Reynolds asked how Jeter was able to deal with the New York tabloids and what Reynolds called the “untruths,” and avoid wilting under the spotlight or saying the wrong thing.
“I don’t address it. There’s been so many things that have been written. Some of it’s funny,” said Jeter. “I try not to read the papers. I probably read them a little more now that I’m not playing. The negativity is something I don’t want in my mind. I don’t comment on it, because I think once you comment once, you have to continue to comment.
“I’ve been engaged, I think, three or four times. I was just supposedly getting married a month ago,” Jeter added.
When Reynolds asked Jeter about his relationship with the late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Jeter recalled one particular Daily News back page story that played up his nightlife.
“Before I was named captain, every off season we’d get together,” Jeter said of Steinbrenner. “He would call me into the office, every year pretty much and tell me, ‘I need you to be focused this year. I need you to lead the team. I don’t want to hear about you at a birthday party ’till 3 o’clock in the morning,’” Jeter said. “I don’t know about anybody out here, but how many birthdays do you have a year? You have one. So, the New York media turned that into I was this big party animal. I was on the front page, ‘Party On!,’ and I’m not going to change my partying ways. … To this day, I’m known as a partier because of that party.
“The media turned it into this big party animal thing. It was really overblown. Me and The Boss made this Visa commercial (in 2003), where me and him are going out at
night, I pay for everything with my Visa, Boss is dancing in a conga line… To this day, I’m probably the only person that’s seen him dance in a conga line.”
Until it wasn’t over. Jeter dislocated his shoulder on Opening Day of that 2003 season in Toronto. He says that while he was recuperating, he decided to have new teammate Hideki Matsui and “the entire team” over to his apartment for dinner.
“The next day we have off. I’m doing this for international relations — the only reason I’m doing it. It’s not for me,” Jeter joked. “So, we go out. Everyone’s there, having a good time. The next day, the front page of the paper says, ‘It’s 3 a.m., Derek’s hour.’ It does not mention Matsui or the 15 other teammates that are there.”
Jeter said when the team got to Cincinnati later that season, the Yankee PR chief told him he had a message from The Boss. Jeter said he immediately thought he would get released because of the headlines.
“That’s when (Steinbrenner) told me that he wanted to name me captain of the team. So it all worked out,” said Jeter.
Jeter said if he came across as bland during his Yankee career, it was because the media never ventured beyond a certain group of questions. “I’ve heard that quite a bit about myself, that I don’t say anything. My response to that is, ‘I keep getting asked the same questions,’” said Jeter. “So if you ask me the same questions, then obviously I’m going to give you the same answer.
“It was simple to me, if I don’t know something, I don’t know.”