When Derek Jeter woke up Tuesday morning, his cell phone was filled with messages. As he began to listen to them, Jeter did not yet know George Steinbrenner had died that morning.
Yesterday, Jeter was asked if, when he heard the condoloences, he initially thought a member of his family had died.
“It is a family member,” Jeter said before the Yankees’ 5-4 come-from-behind victory over the Rays last night at the Stadium. “It’s not immediate family, but it’s a family member because we spent a lot of time together. I consider this organization to be family.”
PHOTOS: YANKEES HONOR STEINBRENNER, SHEPPARD
Jeter spoke before last night’s ceremony to honor Steinbrenner, who died at 80, and longtime public address announcer Bob Sheppard, who died Sunday at age 99.
During the ceremony, Jeter addressed the crowd from behind home plate.
“We gather here tonight to honor two men who were both shining stars in the Yankee universe,” Jeter said to the crowd. “Both men, Mr. George Steinbrenner and Mr. Bob Sheppard, cared deeply about their responsibilities to this organization and to our fans. For that they’ll forever be remembered in baseball history and in our hearts. Simply put Mr. Steinbrenner and Mr. Sheppard both left this organization in a much better place than when they first arrived. They set the example for all the employees of the New York Yankees to try to follow.”
The veteran shortstop had more interaction with Steinbrenner than any of his current teammates. The two often ran into each other in Tampa, where they both lived, during the offseason. Steinbrenner thought enough of Jeter to make him the team captain in 2003, when Jeter was not yet 30.
There were rifts between Jeter and the man he has called a father figure. Steinbrenner in particular chided Jeter, in his younger days, for his love of the New York nightlife. The two buried the hatchet in a familiar way for The Boss: a TV commercial.
In 2003, Jeter and Steinbrenner, who two decades earlier had made Miller Lite commercials lampooning his firing and re-hiring of Yankees manager Billy Martin, appeared together in an ad for Visa. In the commercial, The Boss berates Jeter for going out too much, and Jeter shows how he manages it: his Visa card. That leads to a scene of Steinbrenner and Jeter out on the town dancing in a conga line.
Interestingly, Steinbrenner named Jeter captain of the Yankees a month after the filming of that commercial.
Jeter, who went 0-for-5 last night, reflected before the ceremony on the man for whom he worked from the time he was drafted in 1992.
“He’s probably one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met,” Jeter said. “He had a football mentality. What I mean by that, in football you play what, 16 games? Twelve games in college. He feels as though you should win every single game. You try to tell him we play 162 games, so it’s a little more difficult to win every single game. He really expected that. He enjoyed competition. He hated to lose.”
Jeter, who was born the year after Steinbrenner bought the Yankees and wanted to play for the team all his life, never crumbled under those expectations.
“It’s all I’ve ever known playing for him and his expectation level,” he said. “He expected perfection. He spoke his mind. He challenged his players. If you couldn’t take it, you couldn’t play here. Everyone was aware of that. It could be tough at times. It was really tough on guys that didn’t come up through the organization and came over here and it sort of came out of left field. For me, I enjoyed it. We had a pretty close relationship.”