(If you’re looking for Jeter’s thoughts on A-Rod vs Jason Varitek, don’t bother: they don’t even mention it. With Jeter the ostensible main character, though, “The Captain” can’t quite delve into the nitty gritty of what made the Yankees so good - or, when they fell to a team like the 2004 Boston Red Sox, so frustrating - with enough depth to truly satisfy. Occasionally, sports writers and mainstays of New York at the time of the Yankees and Jeter’s peaks chime in to give context on how and why this team and player became what they did. Jeter’s joined not just by A-Rod, but Daryl Strawberry, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, manager Joe Torre and (Jeter’s personal favorite player) Dave Winfield. So if you’re a baseball enthusiast in general, or even just casually cognizant of the Yankees’ total domination at the turn of the centry, there’s plenty to chew on here. With Jeter being far from the most revealing interview in the series, “The Captain” inevitably becomes more of a deep dive on the Yankees of the late nineties and early aughts as a cultural juggernaut, while remaining anchored to Jeter’s presence as its narrative constant. The difference between him and someone like Alex Rodriguez, his more bombastic rival turned teammate, couldn’t be starker than in juxtaposed remembrances of grievances past, as Rodriguez throws up his hands about putting his foot in his mouth while Jeter sits through a tight smile. When the windshield of his commercial airplane shatters at 30,000 feet in the air, a pilot and his flight crew work to ensure the safety of the passengers and land the plane. When talking about baseball, Jeter follows his career standard by keeping his quotes as straightforward as possible. With Hanyu Zhang, Hao Ou, Jiang Du, Quan Yuan. It just comes several episodes into the series’ examination of what made Jeter such a phenomenon - which feels far too late even if it’s by design, to keep casual ESPN fans engaged when they otherwise might’ve changed the channel at the first mention of race. This discussion about the perception of Jeter, as a star and as a Black athlete who got passes others even on his team didn’t, proves particularly fascinating (as could be expected from a series that also counts Spike Lee as an executive producer). Interviews with Jeter’s Black father, white mother, and biracial sister underline that fact, making clear that even when white journalists thought of Jeter as “colorless” - a direct quote from a Yankees beat reporter in a later episode, much to Jeter’s clear and atypical fury - it couldn’t be further from the truth. As a rule, the closest Jeter gets to revealing anything remotely personal is acknowledging how much growing up biracial in Kalamazoo, Michigan formed his “gotta be twice as good as everyone else” mentality going forward. This Tennessee born hustler and self made CEO is a force to be reckoned with at a young age and has the streets and a college degree backing him. Soldier Willi Herold, a deserter of the German army, stumbles into a uniform of Nazi captain abandoned during the last and desperate weeks of. Releasing mixtape after mixtape along with numerous videos keep his name buzzing in the streets.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |