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It’s a steamy Saturday morning, and Jeter is standing in the first-floor dining room of the brick 1830s West Village townhouse he’s renting. “Come on in,” he says. He’s wearing a gray, maize, and blue University of Michigan T-shirt in anticipation of his beloved Wolverines’ football game tonight against Notre Dame. At 40, he is ancient for a major leaguer, but up close he is leaner than he appears in uniform. With his shaved head, light-green eyes, and coiled serenity, Jeter could pass for a charismatic yoga instructor.
Instead, he is, of course, New York’s reigning sports star on its most glamorous team. And yet, despite being on our television sets seven months a year for the past 20 years, despite the regular appearances at charity events and a social life that seems to have included dating three-quarters of the Maxim Hot 100, he’s always felt just out of reach, available for all to adore but somehow still protected by an impenetrable, cannily constructed bubble of privacy. Opening the door to his home is a hint of a looming shift in Jeter’s life, and in Jeter, Inc.
Tomorrow is Derek Jeter Day at Yankee Stadium. It’s his latest stop on a cross-country farewell tour celebrating not just Jeter’s Hall of Fame–caliber playing career but his humility and rectitude off the field. Jeter announced in February, via Facebook, that he would be retiring after this season. Since then, he’s done a remarkable job of tuning out the impending end of his athletic life, at least publicly. At home, though, down to his final days in pinstripes, Jeter is by turns wistful, proud, funny, even a bit cranky. Mostly he seems relieved. “No more off-seasons,” he says. “It’s just over.”
He has no interest in the traditional jock afterlife: coaching or commentating or getting fat. Instead, he’s launched a publishing imprint at Simon & Schuster. A children’s book comes out September 23, followed in October by Jeter Unfiltered, a collection of evocative, documentary-style off-field photographs by Christopher Anderson—and a significant departure for the privacy-conscious icon.
Jeter Publishing, however, is only the first step. In a media landscape where stars are increasingly taking ownership of the means of production—Oprah Winfrey rose from talk-show host to media conglomerate, Dr. Dre went from producer to music mogul, and Beyoncé runs a management company—one option for Jeter is an ambitious media play. After two decades of being content, he’s intrigued by the possibility of becoming a multi-platform content provider. His business pursuits will likely be varied, but they will all be characteristically Jeter: He will be the one in charge.
There is the rustle of keys. The front door opens. It’s Chef Debbie, Jeter’s personal cook, back from the farmers’ market with a load of groceries. “Do you have to work down here?” Jeter asks as she opens the refrigerator. “We’ll go up, so we won’t bother you.” With that, we’re climbing the stairs, dark-brown wood with black steel railings, past a colorful painting of Miles Davis, one of the few visible decorative touches. “Oh, great, I get a tour,” I say.
Jeter’s response is immediate and firm. “I wouldn’t say tour,” he says. “I’m letting you go up one level.”
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)