Scandal is how Barry Levine makes a living. Not his scandal. Yours. Or theirs. The rich, the famous. Stars and athletes, but only the biggest and best athletes. Tiger Woods comes to mind.
Never.
Barry Levine is executive editor of The National Enquirer, has held that position for the past 15 years, and he has given up the idea of sticking one of his harpoons into the iconic Yankees shortstop.
"I have to say, I can't recall even a single tip or rumor that this guy ever got up to any trouble," Levine says. "I wish I could give you something. There are some athletes we could talk about for hours, about all the horrible and nasty stuff you hear. With Derek Jeter, I've not heard a thing."
That might just capture the most incredible statistic of Jeter's statistically historic baseball career. He's sixth all-time in hits, 10th in runs. Fourteen All-Star games. Five Golden Gloves, five Silver Sluggers. Five World Series rings.
Zero scandals.
Playing 20 seasons in the big leagues, 19 as a starting shortstop. In New York. For the Yankees. In an era of gotcha journalism and social media, where everyone's a reporter with a camera, Derek Jeter remains unblemished.
This almost doesn't happen anymore. Some famous athletes betray themselves as scandalous or unethical or both, whether it's Adrian Peterson whipping his son or Ray Rice punching his wife or Lance Armstrong cheating or Lance Armstrong lying about cheating. Walk that tightrope of fame and false appearance for long enough, and you're going to trip. Mark McGwire tripped over a bottle of Andro, then impaled himself on a syringe of steroids.
Kobe Bryant was accused of rape. So was Ben Roethlisberger. Not guilty? Not even charged? Not the point. Point is, scandal finds the famous, one way or another.
Only, it never found Derek Jeter. Not in 20 years playing shortstop for the most iconic sports franchise in our country's biggest city.
That's not to say he's perfect, because who knows? This isn't meant to be another glowing story on Derek Jeter, all-around good guy, because I have no idea. Well, I have an idea. We all have an idea -- all those years in New York, all the tabloids and websites looking for dirt, none smudging Derek Jeter -- but we don't know. Who knew Joe Paterno was capable of looking the other way for a decade as his defensive coordinator-turned-child predator Jerry Sandusky roamed Happy Valley? Who knew Tiger Woods was such a sleaze?
Who knew?
We don't know Derek Jeter, either, but we do know this: He has stayed above the fray. And the fray is a nasty, competitive business that attracts more readers and viewers than the actual games. The biggest story in sports isn't a team playing its game well, but an athlete living his life poorly. Just how it is.
And so it is that born-again Christian (and recovering addict) Josh Hamilton appears on Deadspin surrounded by women in various stages of drinking and groping and being groped. Robotic Tiger Woods is busted by the National Enquirer for an affair that mushroomed into a remarkable personal meltdown. A British tabloid publishes cell-phone pictures of U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps smoking from a bong. Some random dude tweets out pictures of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones getting randy with a few young women. The gossip site terezowens.com publishes pictures of Blackhawks star Patrick Kane, apparently passed-out drunk.
If you're famous enough, a scandal's going to find you -- as it eventually found Brett Favre in 2010, 18 years into his Hall of Fame career, when Deadspin posted a below-the-belt selfie Favre had sent to a Jets sideline reporter. Favre had a highly publicized bout with painkiller addiction in 1996 in Green Bay, but not until he went to New York did he find himself in the throes of a full-blown, 21st century scandal.
Derek Jeter has never found himself in such a scandal. Not a real one. Not even a made-up one, like the time Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was smeared by a website that added two plus two and got five.
"Derek Jeter is just a good guy," says Levine. "And there's a place for good guys like him in the sense that he's the last person in the world that would have any type of scandal connected to him."
Sounds naive, I tell Levine. He laughs, then says something that sounds even more naive. And again, this is the executive editor of the National Enquirer saying this:
"He's obviously one of those rare athletes where I can bring my daughter to a Yankees game and say, 'This is a real hero,'" Levine says. "And I myself am a Mets fan. Certainly if anything ever came across the pike, we would have looked into it. But in 15 years, I've frankly never heard one bad thing about Derek Jeter."
Want more Derek Jeter farewell?
- Doyel: Captain always above controversy
- Heyman: Overrated? Jeter? Not a chance
- Axisa: One of few to live up big deal
- Pics/video: Very best of an all-time great
