Delivery Man

How will Derek Jeter be remembered when he finally packs away the New York Yankees pinstripes? Maybe it will be for the leaping, jackknife throws he could make deep in the hole at shortstop—or it could for the easy good looks that brought him his GQ status. Or it could be for the crucial postseason base hits he stroked that brought four World Series titles to New York and earned him the Mr. Clutch tag.

That’s the beauty and bounty of Derek Jeter. The guy has delivered exactly what is expected of a New York Yankees captain on the field—the highlight reel of plays, the quiet leadership—but off the field he’s enjoyed the perks of the position: the endorsements, the Saturday Night Live gigs, the fame. And he’s done it all with a style—a coolness—that makes it hard for mortals to be envious (unless, of course, you are a Red Sox fan).

Thing is, Jeter, isn’t looking to be remembered yet. As he plays in his 13th season in the Bronx, he’s still just 33 years old. But the baseball world he knew in his 20s, when he and his teammates were winning four World Series in 5 years, is changing. Jeter is just one of four Yanks from those championship years still with the team—even his manager, Joe Torre has moved on. While his stats have remained upper echelon, he admits that he needs to make sure the aches and pains that he once could play through now don’t put him on the disabled list for extended periods of times.

We talked recently about how the shortstop keeps his body in impeccable shape and deals with the bruises and battering of a 162-game season. At the time, the Yankees were off to a mediocre start, fighting to stay around the .500 mark as injuries had sent star teammates Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez to the disabled list. Even Jeter sat out six games early in the season with an injury to his left quad. But he sounded typically upbeat as he talked about his secrets for staying in shape and the partnership with 24 Hour Fitness, which includes his first 24 Hour Fitness—Derek Jeter club, opening in Manhattan this summer, with two more to follow next year.

You24: This season you missed some games early on with a sore quad. For a guy who rarely sits out, it must have been hard, especially with the team struggling.

Derek Jeter: That’s something I’ve learned through the years. Maybe when I was younger, I might have continued to play with it and pushed it and really pulled it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to take care of things right when they happen and be smart, even when you want to play. So I didn’t play for six games.

Yeah, but you sat against the Red Sox.
It was tough, but we play them 20 times anyway. [Laughs.] You have to be smart about it. Last year I had some leg problems that lingered through the season. And that is something you don’t want to do. So you try to take of care of an injury, especially if it’s early in the season.

When do you know if your body’s not feeling right?
You learn your body more and more through the years. You understand when there is something that is serious and when there is something you can play with. I hate sitting out games; I want to play every day. There is something that is going to be hurt every single day, but when you are injured you can’t play. So I believe in taking care of the injuries at the get-go before you let them become problems.

You must be doing something right. Over 12 years, you’ve stayed remarkably injury-free. How have you managed that?
What I’ve found is you try to do whatever you can to stay in shape to combat any kind of injury you might have. As I’ve gotten older, I tend to do more and more in the off-season. In baseball, you play so many games, it’s different from other sports where you play once a week or a couple of times a week. We play so much—every single day—so you have to try to do things every day in order to stay in shape, whether that’s a lot of stretching or lifting or running or doing agility stuff.

What would be a typical workout-day for you?
Five times a week I do either lifting or agility. I lift 3 days a week before a game. Our games are at night and don’t end until 10:30-11, so I like to get to the stadium a little early. The other 2 days I do some agility stuff and movement stuff. In terms of stretching, that is an every-day thing.

You’re not a real big guy. How important are weights to you?
I try to mix it up. I do a lot of body weights and jumps and explosive drills, and obviously some lifting. For me it is trying to maintain weight because you lose so much during the season. So you have to lift a little, but you try not to lift too heavy.

You say stretching is important. How come?
As a team we stretch before batting practice, and I’ll stretch once again before the game. I do a lot of leg stretches. I want to make sure I’m loose because baseball—even though there are a lot of times [during a game] where you are sitting or standing around not doing anything—is a game of lot of quick movements. You have to explode at times, so I make sure I am always loose.

Do you do anything different in the off-season, say, add a 3-mile run to your workout for endurance sake?
Three-mile run? No way. Baseball is 90 feet, and you take a break. We work more on sprints.

You enjoy the workouts—the stretching, the lifting?
You have no choice. As much as you would like not to do it some days, you realize you have to if you are going to maintain anything. Twelve years ago I don’t even think I lifted during the season. I lifted in the off-season. Guys showed up to games right when we had to be there. They hardly even stretched; they just played. Now you realize you have to take care of yourself a lot more. Obviously when you get older you can’t do some of the things you could do when you were younger, and now you have to maintain and take care of yourself more. When I was younger, a lot of things were easier…

What’s changed?
Now there is so much information people have. One thing about being with the Yankees is, you have access to a lot of the old players, and they say they didn’t even lift weights at all. But now with all the research, more and more people are into working out, not just baseball players. It makes you feel good. You may not like doing it, but when you’re finished, you feel a lot better about yourself.

Talk about your involvement with 24 Hour Fitness.
This is something that has been in the works for 3 or 4 years. It sounded like a great idea to me from the moment we started talking about possibilities for a partnership—especially when you see the fitness craze going on around the country. You feel a lot better about yourself when you work out. 24 Hour Fitness has done a tremendous job, especially on the West Coast, and worked with some great athletes. They wanted to bring it to New York City, and I thought it was a perfect fit. I’m pretty excited about it.

Do you get a sense America is staying in shape?
No question there is an obesity problem in this country. We have so many “conveniences” with fast food and everything else, that it’s easy for people to get complacent in their daily life. But I’m encouraged by the fact that most people do seem to recognize the benefits of working out as part of a healthier lifestyle.

When you think of New York, you think of a lot of things. But is fitness one of them?
That’s where the 24 Hour Fitness comes into play. New York is the city that never sleeps. Obviously people are always running around, 24 hours a day, trying to fit in their workout schedule. Regardless of how busy they are, a lot of people work out as a stress relief.

Now I have to ask you: Is there an exercise that helps you make that leaping catch-and-throw play from deep in the hole at short? You make it look so easy.
I don’t know if I make it look easy. It’s just practice. I did that in the minor leagues; it is just repetition. It is something I practice all that time.

But how do you get that explosive jump?
It’s just practice and lot of work. It’s like anything in any sport. I don’t think it is “one day let me try this” and do it. You continually practice. The more you practice, the better you get at it.