Every spring, Little Leaguers across the country squabble over the right to wear his number: 2. Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn�t always been the best player on his team. But what he does have is an intangible grace that makes him the face�and the hero�of the modern Yankee dynasty, and of America�s game. In The Captain, Ian O�Connor draws on unique access to Jeter and more than 200 new interviews to reveal how a biracial kid from Michigan became New York�s most beloved sports figure and the face of the steroid-free athlete. O�Connor takes us behind the scenes of a legendary baseball life and career, from Jeter�s early struggles in the minor leagues, when homesickness and errors threatened a stillborn career, to the heady days of Yankee superiority and nightlife, to the battles with former best friend A-Rod. All along the way, Jeter has made his Hall of Fame destiny look easy. But behind that leadership and hero�s grace there are hidden struggles and complexities that have never been explored, until now. As Derek Jeter closes in on 3,000 hits, something no Yankee has ever achieved, The Captain offers an incisive, exhilarating, and revealing new look at one of the game�s greatest players at the apex of his career.