The Captain
The Journey of Derek Jeter
By Ian O'Connor
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hardcover, 9780547327938, 416pp.)
Publication Date: April 2011
Other Editions of This Title: Paperback
Categories: Sports - General, Baseball - History
 |     |
Every spring, Little Leaguers across the country mimic his stance and squabble over
the right to wear his number, 2, the next number to be retired by the world’s most famous ball team.
Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and
someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact,
he hasn’t always been the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque ability
to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face of the modern Yankee dynasty,
and of America’s game.
access to Jeter that has spanned some fifteen years to reveal how a biracial kid from Michigan became New York’s most beloved sports figure and the enduring symbol of the steroid-free athlete. O’Connor takes us behind the scenes of a legendary baseball life and career, from Jeter’s early struggles in the minor leagues, when homesickness and errors in the field threatened a stillborn career, to his heady days as a Yankee superstar and prince of the city who squired some of the world’s most beautiful women, to his tense battles with former best friend A-Rod. We also witness Jeter struggling to come to terms with his declining skills and the declining favor of the only organization he ever wanted to play for, leading to a contentious contract negotiation with the Yankees that left people wondering if Jeter might end his career in a uniform without pinstripes. Derek Jeter’s march toward the Hall of Fame has been dignified and certain, but behind that
leadership and hero’s grace there are hidden struggles and complexities that have never been
explored, until now. As Jeter closes in on 3,000 hits, a number no Yankee has ever touched, The
Captain offers an incisive, exhilarating, and revealing new look at one of the game’s greatest
players in the gloaming of his career.
IAN O'CONNOR is a nationally recognized sports columnist who has won numerous Associated Press awards. Currently he writes for ESPNNewYork.com and hosts a radio show for ESPN. He is the author of Arnie and Jack, a New York Times bestseller, and The Jump.
"Derek Jeter is undoubtedly the most talked about, argued about, cheered, booed and ultimately respected baseball player of his generation. And as public a figure as he has been, he is in many ways the least known. That changes now as Ian O’Connor, one of the best sportswriters anywhere, goes deep and does what no one has quite been able to do: tell us a bit about who Derek Jeter really is." — Joe Posnanski, author of The Machine
"For years we’ve been telling young ballplayers to play and behave like Derek Jeter. Now we can tell them to read Ian O’Connor's The Captain. Finally, we have an inside look at the worthy successor to Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle." — Dan Shaughnessy, author of Fenway and Senior Year
 |
1Q84 Haruki Murakami Knopf |
 |
The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides Farrar, Straus, and Giroux |
 |
The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes Knopf |
 |
Death Comes to Pemberley PD James Knopf |
