Derek Jeter remains ‘The Captain’ of his narrative

All these years later, his buddies still get a kick out of that story. So does Jeter — even though he wound up hurting himself, being diagnosed with a condition (an umbilical hernia) that sounds serious but is relatively harmless. He laughs about it during the third episode of “The Captain,” a seven-part documentary series that premiered Monday on ESPN.

“My belly button popped out,” Jeter says, revealing a never-before-told moment. His face softens as he chuckles.

“True story,” he quips.

That third episode focuses on loyalty and what it takes to enter — or be exiled from — Jeter’s circle of trust, and the belly button anecdote takes up just over a minute of airtime. It’s probably the most salacious crumb served up in the whole series.

That’s by design. When one of the most revered but enigmatic and private sports figures of recent decades decides to open up, he does so on his terms.

Take his icy reception for Alex Rodriguez after his former bestie joined the Yankees — Jeter never owns up that, as a captain, he could have done more to help A-Rod feel welcomed. Or his love life — it’s implied that Jeter would enjoy a night out every now and then, taking small bites out of the Big Apple, but in the first five episodes his romantic relationships remain off-topic. (And, no, he says he never gave out gift baskets filled with memorabilia after one-night stands.)

“I think you have to draw the line,” Jeter says of protecting his privacy. “I drew the line at a very, very young age, and I just wasn’t going to let them cross it.”

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Playing 20 scandal-free years in the insatiable New York media market, Jeter disguised vanilla morsels as sound bites and hid his personality behind that placid, handsome face. He looked like a runway model but spoke with the sobriety of an accountant.

The man was boring, a fact best summed up by ESPN reporter T.J. Quinn in the fifth episode: “He never broke character. He’s always Derek Jeter. You never got a sense of who is inside him.”

But unless you are a sportswriter being paid to extract insight, boring isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Jeter was guarded and territorial, and thankfully his way hasn’t been imitated by athletes who care deeply about issues that matter in the world. Still, the superstars of the social media generation could learn a thing or two from his art of moderation.

We see their offseason workout videos on Instagram. We listen in to their barber shop conversations, talk so raw and unfiltered that they have to rush to Twitter for cleanup. We hear their gripes about talking heads in traditional media — even as they study from the same hot-take playbook while hosting their own podcasts.

NASCAR driver Austin Dillon has a reality TV show, and the Ball family’s online series somehow has generated six seasons. Somewhere, Tom Brady is probably preparing for his 23rd NFL season while producing his 700th documentary. Try to picture Jeter revealing this much of himself in the 1990s. It never would have happened. And yet he was the professional athlete who helped usher in this era of oversharing.

As a player, Jeter tried to stay off the back pages of the New York tabloids. But when he retired, he hopped into the media business and founded the Players’ Tribune with Jaymee Messler. Since 2014, the website has given athletes a chance to tell their stories — or, to be more precise, to frame the narrative to their choosing.

Jeter, now 48, recognized the power of speaking for yourself, even though the Players’ Tribune publishes work largely crafted by ghostwriters and athletes have seized on this self-empowerment to commodify and brand themselves. They are the CEOs of their personal and professional lives. But there’s one big difference between Jeter and today’s stars: In his world, not everything was for sale.

Even in “The Captain,” the story goes only as far as the star, who in February stepped down as CEO of the Miami Marlins after nearly five years, allows.

The fans who worshiped him, the beat reporters who covered him and just about everyone who stood locked outside of his intimate circle may never have known about Jeter’s dry sense of humor, that he almost was in the same nightclub as Sean “P. Diddy” Combs on the night of a triple shooting in 1999 or that his trust issues go back to growing up biracial in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Viewers will hear these tales and more in “The Captain,” which is an invitation just far enough past the surface to finally see Jeter. At times, he shows a side few have witnessed. He curses freely, tees off on critics and swims in his personal reservoir of pettiness.

Jeter’s not only a Jordan Brand athlete; he acts like a Michael Jordan clone. Who can forget the scene in “The Last Dance” of Jordan holding a tablet that played a snippet of a Gary Payton interview — and then roaring in laughter about the defense of his long-ago nemesis?

Jeter also gets the last word each time. When reacting to Nomar Garciaparra’s assertion that the Boston Red Sox didn’t lose to a better team in the 1999 American League Championship Series, Jeter channels his inner MJ.

“That’s what losers say,” Jeter says with a smile and a shrug. “Sorry, Nomar. We had a better team that year.”

In the same episode, Jeter shares the gnarly story about his navel. After confirming the incident, he turns his head and, as if facing someone sitting off camera, says, “Pretty sure that story doesn’t make this.”

But of course that story makes the cut. The media company behind “The Last Dance,” which gave Jordan full editorial control, produced this film. The Players’ Tribune also partnered with ESPN and Major League Baseball to help with its creation.

“The Captain” remains Jeterian. It’s billed as candid, but it tells the story his way.

For two decades, Jeter won five championships while controlling his narrative. Now he must think his legacy needs a postscript — so he has written that, too.