Jimmy Sez

When writing The New York Yankees All-Time All-Stars , one of the hardest decisions I had to make was who to put in the last outfield spot on the bench. It was so tough that in the end I kept Hall of Famers Rickey Henderson and Dave Winfield as well as Yankee legends Roger Maris and Paul O'Neill on the outside looking in. Ultimately, I chose Reggie Jackson to round out the lineup. A controversial choice to be sure, but then again, controversy was kind of his thing. By the end of his Yankee tenure, Reggie Jackson was all smiles. tradingcarddb.com/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain It's no surprise, then, that earlier this year Jackson was the subject of a documentary covering his brilliant, tumultuous career, even if we're now more than four decades past the prime of it. While Reggie does hit all the familiar notes that you'd expect in a story about Mr. October, it aims to dig deeper into the man behind the big ego and mostly hits the target by letting Jackson tell his own ...

While the Yankees slowly let their stranglehold on the American League evaporate this summer, ESPN gave us all a palate cleanser in the form of The Captain , a documentary miniseries detailing Derek Jeter's career. Cut from the same mold as The Last Dance - which detailed Michael Jordan's career with the Chicago Bulls - the seven-part series told Jeter's story mostly from his perspective with a healthy dose of commentary from others who were along for the ride. During his career Jeter was a notoriously boring subject to interview. He was always cordial, answering all questions that came his way, but the responses were typically nothing more than boilerplate stuff about putting the team and winning above all. It was going to be interesting to see if The Captain was anything more than the usual fare from Jeter. I was hopeful that it would be. As I may have mentioned before, Derek Jeter and I are good pals . When I met him, I was surprised at how engaged, thoughtful and hone...

It's impossible to overstate how much Don Mattingly meant to me when I was growing up. In second grade I had a homework assignment to write about my heroes and present it to my class. The two heroes I chose were my dad and Don Mattingly. A few years later the Yankees made the playoffs for the first time since I was born and the team was clearly rallying around Mattingly in what was likely his final season as a player. When things got tight late in the decisive Game 5 in Seattle, I ran to the bathroom during a commercial break and prayed like I never prayed before. Pleading to let a few bounces go the Yankees way so that Donnie could finally play in the World Series. Spoiler alert: he didn't. In my late teens I spent many hours applying to colleges, most of them requiring essays. The topic of the majority of my essays was Don Mattingly. What he taught me about leadership, work ethic, and the two-way street called respect, even though we had never spoken a word to each other. I w...