 Hello again everyone and welcome to a special edition of Yes We're Here. I'm Jack Curry. It's special because today I'm joined by Hall of Famer Derek Cheeter, former Yankee captain, former Yankee shortstop who's now the CEO of the Miami Marlins. Derek, first of all, it's good to see you. Second of all, how are you and your family managing during these challenging times? Jack, good to see you as well. We're all holding up. I mean, we're at the house, we haven't left in about 10 weeks, so I have two young ones and I've changed a lot of diapers over the last 10 weeks, so I've become a professional from that standpoint. So for all the statistics that I now apply to Derek Cheeter's career, I'm now adding a lot of diaper changes across the last two and a half months. I'm adding that to your stat line of your career. Now Derek, from having spoken to you for the last quarter of a century and having interviewed your parents, I know it's so well-chronical that as a young boy, you walked into their bedroom and you said, I'm playing in the major leagues, I'm playing shortstop for the Yankees. How did your dreams as a kid end up matching what you eventually accomplished with the Yankees? Yeah, you know, it's a good question, Jack, because I think, you know, when you're a kid and you're dreaming of playing in the major leagues, you just envision yourself there. Nothing else comes along with it. It's almost like it's a black and white picture or painting and then once you're there, you start to put color on it. And you know, so my goal was always to just play shortstop for the New York Yankees. I said it over and over and over for as long as I could possibly remember, but then once I got there, it's, you know, I've said it before, my dream is I've never woken up because I was fortunate to play 20 years in New York, 23 professionally, and it just couldn't get any better. It's above and beyond anything that I could have possibly imagined. Derek, when that 96 season begins, you're 21 years old. Your first opening day, you hit a home run off Dennis Martinez, you make a slick over-the-shoulder catch and shadow left field. And I remember after the game, we tried to get you to talk about yourself and you kept bringing it back to the team. The focus is on winning. The focus is on the team. That's the way you stayed throughout your career. How did that mindset help you and benefit you throughout your career? It's a good question. I think it helped me in a sense where when you go, when you're playing the sport, you know, it's a game of failure. And if you're constantly focused on how you're performing on a day-to-day basis and you get engulfed in the statistics that you're putting up or not putting up, it can be a long summer. So for me, I always felt as though the number one priority was for us to win. And if you went about the game that way, you played that way day in and day out, the numbers would be there eventually. And not to say it in set goals. You know, I wanted to hit 300. I wanted to score under the runs. I wanted to help us anyway we possibly could. But my number one priority when you're competing is to win. And that was just my mindset since you know me probably as well as anyone, Jack. And, you know, funny story, when I was younger, you're well aware of this. And, you know, I was playing a little league game and we lost. And I refused to shake hands with the other team. And my dad told me, he said, look, you better pick an individual sport. Because, you know, you have to be there for your teammates through good times and bad times. And that's why I think throughout the course of my career, you always saw me at the top step. I was one of the first to congratulate my teammates, although I still didn't shake hands with the other team. Now, Dr. Charles Deeter was having none of that that day. But when we go back to 96, David Cohn, one of your teammates, has said to me a number of times, he started out as a rookie trying to establish himself at the beginning of that season. By the end of the season, we were looking at him as one of our leaders. What specific things do you think you did along the way to have a veteran like Cohn saying that about you? You know, it's, I think sometimes when, you know, I found it towards the end of my career, when you're a veteran, you have younger players come up and sort of watch them out of the corner of your eye. You want to see how they're going to handle themselves. And not only how they're going to handle themselves when things are going good, but more importantly, when things are going bad, are they going to be accountable? Are they going to be responsible? Are they going to speak to the media when things go bad? Are they going to run out of the clubhouse? And I think maybe my town will speak for David, but maybe my teammates saw that, you know, I was more inclined to run out of this clubhouse if I had a good game as opposed to when I struggled. And I think that that stands out for the veteran guys, because if you're a veteran guy and you're stuck there answering questions about a teammate, it tends to irritate you a little bit. So I've always just tried to be accountable. Derek, you experienced so many firsts when you become a Major League player. Your first season, full season in the Major Leagues, you go to the World Series and you win it. What are your greatest memories, your greatest reflections on that 96 October? Oh, man, it went so fast. You know, I think for me and look, it was that, you know, Yankee's had one in so many years. It's like a whole new generation of Yankee fans got an opportunity to experience it for the first time right alongside with me. So, you know, I always talk about growing up with the Yankee fans. Well, I did pretty much and this whole era that we had of winning, you know, they were right there with us. So I think when 96, things just happened so quickly and there was so much excitement and seemed like it was the only thing that anyone wanted to talk about. Now, maybe because I was in a bubble, that was the only thing I wanted to hear. But there was quite a bit of electricity in New York City and you never forget it. Anytime you do something for the first time, it tends to stand out a little bit more. When we fast forward to the 1998 season, that team won 125 games regular season and post season combined. Was there a point in that season as you looked around at that team and said, and we're in the middle of an historic run right here, this could end up being something really, really special? No, not until it was over. And what I mean by that is I think that's one of the reasons why we want so many games. You know, as a group, we never looked back and said, you know what, we had a good month, so now we can take our foot off the gas. You know, it was every single day, how are we going to beat you? And that was the mindset that everyone had on that team. We wanted to win every single day. And, you know, I've never seen that in a team, in a particular group, and more importantly, in a particular year. We had a lot of same guys came back, but that particular season was as good as it gets. It's so difficult to compare errors. 1927 Yankees, 1961 Yankees, 1998 Yankees. But some of your teammates, even manager Joe Torre, they've made the argument that was the greatest team ever. How comfortable are you seeing something like that that you played on the greatest team ever? No, I mean, it's very comfortable, obviously. If you can't, it's impossible to try to compare errors. You just can't do it. It was different time, different players. But I'm comfortable saying that I don't think that there was a team that played together better than that particular group in 1998. It may be some teams that may have been as good, but I would sit and argue that there weren't any teams that were better than us. They had their players. You go through the history of baseball. There's teams with arguably better players. But in terms of playing together as a group, I'm comfortable saying that in my opinion, I feel as though that team was as good as it gets. Derek, I've had the opportunity to interview a lot of your teammates recently. Mariano Rivera, I thought used a great word to describe the core of Yankee players and those players who had so much success. He said it was a brotherhood then. It remains a brotherhood today. How appropriate was that description from Mariano? It's accurate. It doesn't make the difference how long I'd go without seeing one of those guys. When we're together again, it's like we're still in the clubhouse. I played with all of them since I was 18 years old. And that's a long time to know each other. And we've been through a lot together. Good times, bad times. We've won. We've lost. We've laughed. We've cried. We've done just about everything you can do. And to me, those guys are probably as close to being family as you possibly can be. So I constantly referenced them as being brothers and family members. And those guys are pretty special. Derek, you had two decades in New York. You know how passionate baseball fans are in New York. Yankee fans and Met fans. You get to the World Series in 2000. Yankees are trying for a three-peat. The Mets are trying everything they can to spoil that. How much pressure was there on the Yankees as the favorites in that World Series? There's no pressure at all, Jack. It really didn't matter what happened. No, I look, it's I moved to Manhattan when I was 21 years old. And I've joked about it before, but I really mean it. If we didn't win that World Series against the Mets, I think I would have moved out of the city. Because in my mind, it was a battle for New York. And we were playing for something that was pretty special when three championships in a row. The Mets had a great team and all eyes were on New York at that particular time. And we had the win. I felt as though we had everything to lose. I never liked to hear when teams are playing. They said, we have nothing to lose. We had the World Series to lose. But I think for us it was a little bit more than that. So thank God we were able to win that series. You had a big homer off Bobby Jones, first pitch for game four. You ended up being called the World Series MVP of 2000. You referred to that in the aftermath of it, Eric, as the most gratifying World Series from that point. More gratifying in 96, 98, and 99. Because what you just said, you said the Mets were as tough as any team we had to face. You still feel that way? Was 2000 as gratifying as any of the ones you ended up winning? I probably said it because it was freshest in my mind when I was asked the question. Look, it's now looking back. I've always had trouble reflecting on my career while I was playing. Looking back, 96 was special. 98, we talked about it. Hardly one of the greatest teams to play. 99 repeat. And then we won three in a row and beat the Mets. And then we went nine years before we had a chance to win again. So they're all special. But the Mets series, I think from all the pressures that came outside of the actually on the field, the pressures from whether it was the media or the fan base in New York, that add a little bit extra to it. But in my mind, it made it that much more fun. So yeah, they're all special. But at the time, you had to remember saying that. I meant it when I said it. I thought so. I went back and did the research. It was an interesting comment from you at the time because I know how special some of those other ones were. But to have the three feet like that, Derek, when we look at baseball history since then and you occupy a chair right now where you're trying to help a team win a world series, no team has even won back to back titles since the Yankees won three in a row. How much has that feet grown in luster and just the power of what you guys did? Yeah, throughout my career, I always said winning isn't easy. We made it look easy at times, but it's not easy. And made a great point. I mean, teams haven't won back to backs since then. We said the best teams make it to the postseason, the hottest team wins. And just goes to show you how special those groups were. But then on top of that, a lot of credit goes to Mr. Steinberg. He gave us the opportunity to stick together which a lot of times you don't see that even nowadays. There's so much player movement that teams and court groups don't get an opportunity to stick together where he gave us that chance. Three in a row, you don't ever want to say it's not going to happen again because you never know what's going to happen. But it's difficult to do. When I mentioned the three in the road to Joe Tori, he talked about how it gave him goosebumps to talk about it after all these years. But then he also said, and we came so close to getting four in a row. I don't have to do the play-by-play for you if you know how close it was. Yeah, this interview was going good, Jack. Thanks. But 2001, you have all these victories. You have all these rings. You've got five rings on your finger. Four in five years. Do you still lament 2001? You know, it's funny to ask because you tend to remember the times that in your mind you felt as though you should have won. Now, look, I get it. Every team that loses, they come out and say, our team was better. We don't know your mind. You lost. But in your mind, you never forget those times and say, yeah, I could play over 2001. I'd play it over. I could play over 2004 against Boston and play it over. 2003 against the Marlins. I'd play it over. But look, we've been fortunate. We've got a lot of breaks when we won as well. But those times that we've lost, you definitely remember. Well, you just used the word play. I'm going to use it in a more lighthearted way right now. I'm going to ask you to play a little word association game. I did this with Tori and Bernie and Posada and Pettit and Mariano. I'm just going to ask you a name and the first word, phrase, or anecdote about that person that comes up. And Mariano is where I was going to start. Your fellow Hall of Famer, Mariano Rivera, what jumps to mind? He was the best to do it. That's the first thing that comes to mind. And that's not disrespectful to any other reliever or closer that came before him or comes after him. I was there to witness it. I saw him day in and day out. And it was a feeling that he gave everyone on that team. When he came in the game, it was over with. A gentleman that you used to call Petite, Andy Pettit. You know, Pett, he would always rise to the occasion. It seemed like whenever we needed a big win, Andy was the guy. And the team had the utmost confidence in him, whether it was a regular season game, division series, league championship series, or World Series. Andy was the guy that stepped up and he knew how to get the job done. I feel as if I'm not breaking any news by saying that this player was one of your best friends in baseball and remains one of your best friends. Jorge Passati. Clown. No, I'm just playing. I'm just messing with you. That's why he's your friend. He can take anything else. Jorge Passion is the word that comes to mind. He was as passionate as anyone that I played with. And, you know, he had that mindset that he was going to grind it out every single day. And he was going to do whatever it took to win a particular game. And he never accepted losing. I used the word core in this interview, but I didn't say core four. I said core is played because core four pushes Bernie out of the mix. And some of your fellow core four members have said, no, no, we can't do that. Bernie paved the way for us. How about Bernie Williams? Yeah, you know, you said, Jack, you know, I believe they started using the core four phrase after we won in 2009. And unfortunately, Bernie wasn't there. But Bernie is someone who I think gets underappreciated by a lot of people, not by us. We would have never gotten the opportunity. And when I say us, I mean, before that you mentioned, coming up as a young player, we would have never gotten the opportunity to stick around if it wasn't for Bernie. Bernie was the guy that paved the way for us. Bernie was the guy that we all looked up to. And Bernie was the guy that we spoke to and asked questions to. And, you know, he's the reason why we got that opportunity, because, you know, the organization was known in the past for trading the young players. And we deserve all that all the success accolades that we've received. We wouldn't have gotten it if it wasn't for Bernie. And then Derek, the gentleman that you never referred to as Joe, it was always Mr. Torrey for you. Yeah, Mr. T, he's calming influence. You know, I can't think of a better person, a better manager to have as a young player, because as a young player, you're going to make mistakes. And one of the first things you do is you look in the dugout. And, you know, if you have a manager that's throwing his hands up in the air, it probably just puts that much more pressure on you. But Mr. T was as calm as they come. He was direct. You know, we had our sidebar conversations, but he'd never try to show you up and he was a great communicator. And Derek, finally, as we end this, I know how much New York meant to you both personally and professionally throughout your life. As we are all living through this challenging time right now, what kind of message of hope or strength would you have for New Yorkers? Yeah, well, I'd say, look, you know, challenging times, you hope brings out the best in people. And, you know, New Yorkers have been through challenging times before. Everyone in this country has been through challenging times before. And you hope that it brings out the best. We're going to bounce back. Going to take a little time, but we hope that the light is at the end of the tunnel and come back stronger than we ever were before. Derek, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. I hope we see baseball soon. And I'm glad that on this day, I can take credit for at least taking you away from diaper duty for a little while. Jack, that's why I told you it's 1.30. They're napping right now. So I gotta go get them up. Derek, I'll see you soon. Thanks so much. All right. Thanks, Jack. Appreciate it.