J-Speaks: Marlins New CEO with Yankee Ties

Winning a championship in professional North American sports, in fact across the globe is one of the hardest things to do on Earth. Trying to win multiple championships is even harder. The Miami Marlins are the rare teams other than the New York Yankees, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals to name a few in Major League Baseball that can say they have won two or more title, with the Yankees with the most in MLB history with 27 World Series titles. The Marlins have two titles to their name, but other than those two titles in 1997 and 2003 respectably, they have not made the playoffs for 14 straight seasons. There are a slew of reasons why that has happened, with one being poor leadership in the front office. A new ownership group led by a former Yankee who for two decades was a marvel on the diamond and a jewel off it hopes to lead the Marlins back to the top of the MLB mountain and keep them there. 

For two decades, Derek Sanderson Jeter, a lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame was one of the best players to ever play, being named an All-Star selection 14 times and a five-time World Series champion all for the “Pinstripes.” Equally as impressive, he avoided a sprinkle of conflict or controversary in the media mega capital of the country in New York, NY. 

Today though, the former Yankee shortstop is on the opposite side of his sport as the chief executive officer (CEO) and part owner of the Miami Marlins, who as mentioned earlier since winning the major’s biggest prize in 2003 have not even played in the postseason in 14 straight seasons. 

For most new front office personnel, they might be the headliner in the press and the team for a tenth of a second. For Jeter, that has not been the case. 

That is especially true when one of the best in music and entertainment in DJ Khaled on Opening Day of the 2018 season on Mar. 29 for the Marlins versus the Chicago Cubs when he said to the Marlins Park crowd, “Shout out to Derek Jeter. Legendary.”

Unfortunately for Jeter, his second act has not been as smooth as his first as the Marlins are just 22-40 this season, dead last in the National League East. 

When asked by HBO “Real Sports” host Bryant Gumbel if he is as happy as he looks in an interview that aired back on Apr. 24, Jeter said, “I am. Things are going well. It’s a good time in my life.” 

That answer threw Mr. Gumbel a little bit because from what he had read that about the team since he took over by the record and the feelings of the fans by his actions that things have been hectic, which is a kind word for saying that the Marlins are a serious mess. 

From firing beloved people within the organization. Blowing off the annual MLB winter meetings. Tanking on the current season. 

This was not what the Marlins fanbase hoped for when Jeter and a handful of wealthy partners like Bruce Sherman, co-founder of the wealth-management firm “Private Capital Management” purchased the struggling Marlins franchise, with the sale being official in September 2017.  

“There’s a complicated history with the fanbase here,” Jeter who owns just a four percent stake in the organization said. “It’s an organization that won a championship, dismantled the team. Won a second one, dismantled the team. Build a stadium, dismantle the team.” 

So, it was head scratching to fans when Jeter and his ownership group came into town and in the blink of an eye did what prior Marlins brass did, dismantled the team. 

He showed the door to every well known to the organization from well-known team ambassadors, front office personnel, broadcasters and even the team’s mascot “Billy the Marlin,” who was portrayed by John DeCicco for over a decade. 

Jeter also traded away all of the Marlins best players, though he did shed tens of millions of dollars in payroll. However according to Gumbel that money was for himself and his fellow owners. 

On an ESPN Radio show, Mike Golic of “Golic and Wingo,” presented by Progressive said on a broadcast that, “Derek Jeter is ruining the Marlins. He just stripped this sucker down until it was completely barren.” 

Jeter though was not surprised by the reaction of anger from the Miami faithful seeing the team they have come to know from the players on the field and other parts of the organization getting the axe or a one-way ticket out of town. He also said that for a team that has not been to the postseason in as mentioned 14 years, something had to be done even if it was going to be painful. 

“If you don’t win you have to make changes,” Jeter, who traded last season’s NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton to his former team the Yankees and Devarius “Dee” Gordon, who was traded on Dec. 7, 2017 to the Seattle Mariners said to Gumbel. 

If that move was not enough that irked the fans of South Florida, Jeter skipped the MLB’s annual convention of front office personnel, the Baseball Winter Meetings. Jeter sent a Marlins executive in his place to the meetings, which took place just up the road in Orlando. 

Jeter was scene of the Monday Night Football nationally televised tilt of the Miami Dolphins hosting the then defending Super Bowl champion and American Football Conference rival New England Patriots that night of Dec. 11, 2017 on ESPN. 

When asked by Gumbel if it was bad optics that he was at the game and not at the Winter Meetings, especially after trading Stanton Jeter said, “No because I had a job to do.” 

After being pressed by Gumbel about it being his responsibility to be at the meetings to explain why the best players on the roster were being moved via trade or not re-signed Jeter added, “No, not necessarily.” 

“There’s more to a football game. It wasn’t going to watch a football game. There were meetings that were taking place at a football game.” 

For almost every human being regardless of their profession, criticism comes with the territory whether it is from people from within or on the outside. For Jeter though, the iconic face of the not just the Yankees, but the entire league seemed unthinkable was rarely criticized by the local and national press. 

For two decades for the “Bronx Bombers” made big plays on the diamond and was a fixtured in the New York area with his charity work with the “Turn 2 Foundation,” and his ability to connect with others. 

Jeter’s second act was supposed to follow the script of the first, but it has not and he has taken a lot of heat for it in as mentioned South Florida and across the nation. 

One person that has been in his corner during the start of his second act has been his father Dr. Charles Jeter, who said to Gumbel about how his son is doing as CEO, “I think he’s doing well.” 

Mr. Jeter added, “Yeah, he’s a rookie. Some things are not going to go very well. You try some things. There’s going to be some criticism that comes with it.” 

Perhaps the greatest strength of Jeter has become his biggest crutch at the start of his second act, which has been his internal will to expect a lot out of himself and put it into action on the field. 

While he has had some fall on your face moments, Mr. Jeter said of his son that this rough time has not changed how he is wired saying, “With Derek, I know from talking with him he wants to be just as good as an owner.”

The other change in the life of Jeter is that he is now married to model Hannah Davis. They live in a 30,000 square foot mansion on Florida’s West Coast of Tampa Bay, FL, which has been dubbed by the local’s “St. Jetersburg.” 

On top of that on August 17, 2017 the Jeter and his wife welcomed their first child, a daughter named Bella Raine Jeter. 

This is a long way for a man that dated model Vida Guerra, former Miss Universe Lara Dutta, singer Joy Enriquez, the former Vanessa Minnillo, now Vanessa Lachey being married to singer and host Nick Lachey, and actors Jessica Biel, Jordana Brewster and Minka Kelly. 

“You come home and regardless of what happens at work she smiles, and she’s happy to see me, so that’s the best part,” Jeter said about the perspective fatherhood has given him. 

About his home being in Tampa and his job is in Miami, Jeter said, “My home is here now. I don’t know if my wife signed up for that but you have to be here. You have to be present. You have to be present in the community and I’m here. I’m in Miami.”

The other big difference between his time as a player to now in the front office for Jeter is during pregame of home games at Marlins Park he is obligated to attend VIP events and too engage with advertisers and season ticket holders. 

Jeter has gone from a once reluctant sales man to a person that is constantly perfecting his pitch to the Chamber of Commerce, potential corporate partners and the fanbase and anyone who he is introduced to about what is to come for the Marlins under his leadership. 

He even said during his interview with Gumbel that once it concluded that he was going to have someone come to him and get him tickets to see the Marlins, or a sweet to entertain. 

Another huge hurdle that Jeter has in front of him in his and the new front offices’ efforts to turn the Marlins into a consistent winner is to fill Marlins Parks. 

On Opening Day against the visiting Chicago Cubs, fans from the “Windy City” seemed to outnumber supporters of the home team in the stands. On top of that a number of seats were empty, especially in the so-called nose bleeds. That is something that never occurred in Jeter’s former life as the old and new Yankee Stadium was full to the last seat with loud, excited, and loyal fans. 

It does not help that the Marlins roster to start the season was young and inexperienced, which is something Jeter says he wants because he wants to build the team into a consistent winner from the ground up. 

Where they develop from young men that earn their stripes down in the minor leagues and eventually turn into superstars like he did. 

“There’s a time where you take the field where people don’t even know your name, right. That happens in sports,” Jeter said. “They don’t know who you are when you first come up, but they get to know you.”

Jeter is correct in the fact that the Yankees before striking gold with him, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, who came to be known as the “Core Four,” who led the organization to four World Series titles in five seasons in the late 1990s. 

It is what Jeter called “The Blueprint” for success to become champions that led the Cubs two years ago and the Houston Astros this past season. Jeter is hoping that happens in South Florida, but the start has been rough as the Marlins lost their season opener versus the Cubs 8-4 and as mentioned have yet to find their footing with their young roster. 

It has led to many inside and outside the circle of the Marlins to suspect that the plan for Jeter and the Marlins front office is to lose so much that they will earn the highest picks in the 2018 amateur draft, which has become known as “tanking.” The strategy, which has been done most notably by the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA to ask teams and the fanbase to bypass winning for the moment in the hopes of improving the team in the years to come. 

That word “tanking” is something that Jeter does not see and will not even entertain, which he made very clear to Gumbel. 

“We’re trying to win ball games every day,” he said. “When you take the field, you have an opportunity to win each and every day. Each and every day. That mindset should be with you every single time you take the field. You never tell your team that they’re expected to lose. Never.” 

“Every single day you compete. You never tell your players that you are expected to lose. You don’t do that. You should take that as a slap in the face as a player. You should take that as a slap in the face.” 

While Jeter might have the illusion of the Marlins should be better regardless that they are just getting their feet wet as a team, what cannot be put to the wayside is the fact that the long-suffering fans have just had enough. 

The home stadium that the new front office inherited, which has a retractable roof, an aquarium behind home plate and a home run structure that is a marvel in of itself was bought and paid for, a nearly $2 million bill which these taxpayers are still paying off. That has led to the city filing a lawsuit asking the prior owners, as well as Jeter’s ownership group for five percent of the generated revenue from the sale of the Marlins. 

Jeter pointed out to Gumbel that the new ownership group did not make money and that they were the ones that paid the money and that is what they will say when they are in the courtroom when the date for that lawsuit to be settled comes. 

To Jeter’s credit he did host town hall meeting where he took questions and absorbed the frustrations the aggrieved Marlins season ticket holders. 

While video cameras were not permitted inside, a fan described the scene to local radio saying that many people were shedding tear and screaming out their frustrations on what has happened with the team. 

The fan said that one person at that meeting, “I’ll probably die before the Marlins are a winner.” 

For a fanbase that has been asked time, and time again for patience, having to be asked again by a rookie CEO is unthinkable. Jeter said to Gumbel that it is a fair question of when playoff baseball will return to South Florida and his response was, “I don’t know. You take it one game at a time.” 

“I wish I was a fortune teller, right. I wish I can tell the future. You take it one game at a time. That’s all you can do.”

Luckily some fans of the Marlins are starting to see a future for their team with the future Hall of Famer leading the front office. 

One fan said to Gumbel that he confronted Jeter about the issues he has had for over the 20 years he has seen Marlins baseball and the fact that he was direct with him about the course they are trying to take he respected that honesty. 

“As a Marlin fan, I truly believe in his outlook and I know he’s going to do the right things, and his plan will be a successful plan for the city and for the Marlins organization,” another fan said about the team’s outlook for the future. 

“Jeter, I think in the long run is doing the right thing. So, it might happen overnight but we believe the process.”  

What has been lost in the shuffle in all that has gone on with the Marlins, their new CEO did accomplish something of note. Jeter became the first African American CEO of a major league baseball team. 

“Thinking back to the years ago in the South. Being born in the South, man I tell you, it’s almost an out of body experience,” Mr. Jeter said to Gumbel of the position his son achieved in becoming the first African American CEO in pro baseball. 

Jeter concurred by saying, “It means a lot. It means a lot.” “I’m well versed in the history of this game. I understand that diversity, especially in the front office has been an issue with this game. I think there’s been some progress, but not quite as much as there should be.”

Even with the mountains of criticism, Jeter remains positive and he never looks back at the first act of his baseball career where he was successful individually, helped the Yankees achieve success as a team and rarely had a misstep on or off the baseball diamond. 

He told Gumbel that he does not missing playing at all. So much so that Jeter said to Gumbel that the last time he swung a bat was the last game he played in 2014. 

For 20 seasons in the city that never sleeps he dominated. He was a leader, a legend on and off the field; a pillar philanthropically in New York and kept as squeaky clean an image as any professional athlete could ever keep. At age 43, Derek Jeter has is in his second act, that has not been easy; that he has been criticized and looked down on, but is at peace, enjoying the grind and has a willingness to learn and get better just as he did on the baseball diamond. 

“I’m enjoying what I’m doing,” Jeter said to Gumbel about being CEO of the Marlins. “Like I said, there’s still a lot to learn. I’m not coming in here claiming to be some so-called expert. There’s a lot to learn and I enjoy learning. There’s no exit strategy for me here.”

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 4/24/18 edition of HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel;” www.espn.com/mlb/team/schedule/_/name/mia/miami-marlins; www.espn.com/nfl/team/schedule/_/name/mia/year/2017; www.abcnews.go.com Feb. 12 story, “Marlins Fire Man Who Plays Team’s Mascot, Bill the Marlin,” by ESPN.com news services via ESPN; www.yahoosports.com Dec. 11, 2017 story “Derek Jeter Skips Winter Meetings, but Calls in To Blame Giancarlo Stanton,” by Chris Cwik; https:/en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Marlins; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Four; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dee_Gordon#Miami_Marlins; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Jeter.