“…And We Haven’t Been That Team for Quite Sometime” – Derek Jeter Discusses the World Championship Slump Before the Historic World Series Victory

The New York Yankees are the greatest and most popular team across all the Major Leagues in North America. However, a team is nothing without its players. Similarly, the Yanks have housed one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Amongst them is a legend and MLB Hall of Fame member, Derek Jeter. Jeter spent his entire 20-year playing career with the Yanks. In 2003, Steinbrenner named Jeter the captain of the Yanks.

As captain of the NY Yankees, Jeter’s journey wasn’t the smoothest. The Yankees won 3 consecutive World Championships from 1998 to 2000. However, after 2000, the Yanks made only 2 World Series appearances in 2001 and 2003, which they lost. Coming from such a splendid World Series streak, the lack of appearances post-2003 put Jeter under immense scrutiny.

Derek Jeter on the Yankee slump before the 2009 season

Derek Jeter always stood in front of the team. He took responsibility, displayed character, and led from the front. Judging his captaincy by numbers would do injustice to the way he carried the Yanks. Furthermore, he faced excess criticism all through his career despite brilliant performances.

During an interview in the spring of 2009, Jeter spoke about the dependency and, in effect, the requirement of some direct or indirect luck to win a World Championship. He said, “You’ve got to get a lot of breaks to win. You need to have a good team, obviously, but you have to have a lot of things go your way. And, the years that we won, we were good, but we got our share of breaks.”

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He continued to discuss the Yanks’ poor postseason performances that eventually led to their minimum World Series appearances. He said, “Once you get into the playoffs, it’s whoever is hot at that time and playing good at that moment. And we haven’t been that team for quite some time.” Very coincidentally, the Yanks went on to win the 2009 season under Jeter.

What did Jeter say about Alex Rodriguez’s PED Scandal in 2009

During the 2009 spring break, Sports Illustrated released a list of 104 players who tested positive for banned MLB substances. In the same video, on being asked questions about A-Rod’s scandal, he said, “We’re his team. We will stand behind him. I don’t condone anything he did, he doesn’t condone anything he did. He understands that it is a mistake, and he’s trying to get past that mistake. As teammates, we’re going to help him out. We realise that it’s going to be difficult, but our job is to try to support him as he tries to get back on the field.”

The Yankees are yet to make a World Series appearance since 2009. 2022 has started off as a good year for the Yanks. Will they be able to make it to the World Series?

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