Derek Jeter is best positioned to be the biggest TV voice in baseball. He just finished his rookie season of a multi-million-dollar Fox Sports contract, which is for a total of six years, according to sources.
The Captain is committed to TV for the long haul.
With his legendary playing career and his presence as maybe baseball’s biggest star of the last three decades, he is once again in a spot to succeed in October.
In a star-studded pregame, featuring host Kevin Burkhardt, David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez, the untarnished Jeter could become the definitive opinion-maker in baseball.
He is just not there yet.
Jeter, 49, did not have a bad rookie year — we’d say he hit .286 with 16 homers and 77 RBIs — but he needs to be a little bit looser if he is going to bat cleanup and not be a table-setter.
The Fox Sports show is designed to have fun. At host, Burkhardt serves as an Ernie Johnson-like point guard, who looks to pass first, but can hit his shot when open. Ortiz is the clubhouse comedian with as many gimmicks as Carrot Top. A-Rod has always been better in the controlled environment of the studio, where he can prepare his thoughts and deliver them as he has had plenty of practice acting.
Jeter was purposely bland as the captain of the Yankees and he will never be Charles Barkley, but he does have personality and is genuine. As a player, he said he didn’t watch baseball, let alone, presumably, the pregames, which made his venture into TV an unexpected choice.
Performing well on TV is harder than it might seem. After Game 4 of the World Series, when the Rangers took a three games to one lead with an 11-7 win, Jeter opined.
“The recipe for success for Arizona has to be a low-scoring game,” Jeter said. “Look, they scored a few runs tonight, but they are not built to do that. Texas is built to bang so [the Diamondbacks] are going to have to make sure that they keep them to five or six runs or less.”
If any writer went to Jeter during his playing prime and asked if he thought a recipe for success for the Yankees would be to hold the other team to five runs or less, Jeter would have politely brushed back the reporter off the plate.
“Yeah, it would be better if we gave up fewer than five runs instead of 11,” Jeter would probably say with a slight grin.
These pregame shows are not really about being right, but rather moments that can go viral. The Jeter clip that most lit up the internet occurred during the ALCS Game 5 pregame in Texas when Ortiz presented black Cowboy hats to Burkhardt, Rodriguez and Jeter.
Burkhardt and A-Rod quickly put them on, laughing as Big Papi cracked that Burkhardt looked like Woody from “Toy Story.” Ortiz implored Jeter to try it on, which Jeter retorted with: “New Yorkers don’t wear these.”
After social media called out the too-cool-for-school Captain, Jeter posted to X a photo with him donning the Cowboy hat and the caption: “Relax!! It was just a skit.”
Jeter may have grown from experience, if he realized he can’t appear above every inane segment. The inanity is the point of the Fox show.
Off-stage with Fox, Jeter has made the same impression from his first game in London to the All-Star Game and the playoffs that he did during his Hall of Fame career. He has been a great teammate, low maintenance and easy to work with, according to sources. He fits on a set that Fox has pumped up with big names, modeled after its longtime success on NFL Sundays.
There is potential for Fox’s show to become something bigger if it combines serious with the silly. Before Game 3 of the World Series, Fox did a demonstration about PitchCom, which allows not only the pitcher and catcher to hear what is being thrown, but three fielders. With A-Rod wearing a Yankees cap and a glove, Jeter had a solid quip, saying after the way A-Rod had been talking bad about the Yankees lately that maybe he should have a Rangers or Mariners cap on.
Jeter added some Peyton Manning-level insight, bringing fans onto the field, explaining as a player he would read the catcher’s sign from short and if it was off-speed, he would whistle to alert A-Rod at third. Good stuff, all around.
Jeter’s presence adds to the event. In a World Series featuring the Rangers and Diamondbacks, he was the biggest star. He may never be the voice of baseball. But with another five years on his deal, he will have a chance to hit better than .300, crack 30 homers and drive in 100.
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