Derek Jeter’s Post-Playing Makeover Continues, As He Joins Fox To Be A Baseball Analyst

Last November, when Derek Jeter was a guest of his old Yankee manager Joe Torre’s “Safe at Home” charitable foundation gala in Manhattan, the Hall of Fame shortstop played it coy when asked what his next baseball endeavor would be.

Jeter, 48, had already made plenty of 2022 headlines, first stepping down from his chief executive officer post with the Miami Marlins and giving up his ownership stake with the franchise. The notoriously private Jeter joined social media in May and then hyped the multi-part ESPN docuseries, “The Captain,” which chronicled his life and Yankees playing career.

By the time November rolled around, Jeter seemed to dial back his baseball profile.

“I’m open to a lot of things. But I really don’t know right now. I’ve sort of taken a step back here for a few months,” Jeter said at Torre’s event. “We’ll see. I love the game.”

Baseball fans didn’t have to wait long for Jeter’s next move.

During Fox’s Super Bowl broadcast Sunday, the network’s NFL sportscaster Curt Menefee and Fox on-air talent Michael Strahan and Alex Rodriguez welcomed Jeter to the Rupert Murdoch-owned media fold.

“The newest member of the Fox baseball team joins us right now. Welcome in, Derek Jeter,” Menefee said before a live audience in Arizona. “Long-time Yankees superstar.”

“El Capitán!” Rodriguez, Jeter’s former Yankee teammate, gushed. “I never thought in my wildest dreams that we’d be reunited, but here we are. Derek to the Fox family.”

A wild dream indeed. That Jeter is reunited with his long-time infield partner — and on-and-off “frenemy” — Rodriguez says a lot about how much ice has thawed in their relationship. As revisited in “The Captain” series, Jeter’s and Rodriguez’s friendship forever fractured after Rodriguez was quoted in a 2001 Esquire story challenging the Yankee icon’s leadership skills. At the time, Jeter had already helped the Yankees win four World Series titles in five years.

“You go into New York, you wanna stop Bernie (Williams) and (Paul) O’Neill. You never say, Don’t let Derek beat you. He’s never your concern,” Rodriguez famously said in the 2001 Esquire story.

Oops. The rift widened when Rodriguez joined the Yankees in 2004 and was only tempered somewhat by the club winning a championship in 2009 — Jeter’s fifth ring and A-Rod’s first. Rodriguez served a season-long doping suspension during 2014, Jeter’s last year playing for the Yankees. And in 2016, the Yankees released Rodriguez in August, ending his career for good.

Rodriguez, 47, has since embarked on numerous business endeavors, including a broadcast media career with ESPN and Fox. Now the veteran analyst Rodriguez gets company on the Fox broadcasts this season with the rookie Jeter.

“There are no issues between Alex and I, at all,” Jeter told Fox’s Rosanna Scotto in a July 2022 interview to promote “The Captain.”

It only took two decades, a tell-all docuseries and now, a Fox contract, to get there.