Derek Jeter denies rumour he gave gift bags with signed baseballs to women he dated: ‘Never happened’

‘It’s a story that became larger than life,’ the MLB Hall of Famer says

Derek Jeter claims there is no truth to the decade-old rumour that he sent women he dated home with gift baskets of signed Yankees memorabilia.

In 2011, the New York Post reported that the baseball star was notorious for sending his one-night stands home with gift baskets in an article titled: “Jeter gives autograph swag to one-night stands.”

“Derek has girls stay with him at his apartment in New York, and then he gets them a car to take them home the next day. Waiting in his car is a gift basket containing signed Jeter memorabilia, usually a signed baseball,” an anonymous source told the outlet at the time.

In the article, the same source also claimed that the MLB Hall of Famer accidentally gave the same woman the gift on two separate occasions, after seemingly “forgetting” about their previous meeting.

“This summer, he ended up hooking up with a girl who he had hooked up with once before, but Jeter seemed to have forgotten about the first time and gave her the same identical parting gift, a gift basket with a signed Derek Jeter baseball,” the source alleged.

However, Jeter has now addressed the rumour in the upcoming ESPN docuseries The Captain, in which the 48-year-old athlete insisted it “never happened”.

“Yeah, I read the article. Yeah, of course,” he said, according to The Daily Beast. “You know, you see it, and then it’s like, how the f**k did people come up with this? You know, basically, that’s it. And who would believe this sh*t? And you believed it!”

The former Yankee even recalled one instance where he was approached in Starbucks by a “random guy” who claimed to be inspired by his rumoured dating approach.

“I remember being at a Starbucks one time and there’s some random guy behind me and he says: ‘Hey, I just want to let you know that I’m giving out gift baskets because you did.’ And I turned around and said: ‘You’re a f**king idiot!’ and the look on his face… like, did he think I was gonna say: ‘Yeah, good job, man!’” Jeter continued.

“It’s a story that became larger than life,” he concluded. “People keep regurgitating this story that never happened. Never happened.”

In the docuseries, Emily Smith, the author of the Post piece, said she received a call from a woman who “described two occasions when she got the memorabilia,” and that she “saw some pictures of it, but we didn’t publish them,” according to The Daily Beast.

However, Smith also noted that it was never confirmed whether the woman had an intimate relationship with Jeter, or whether she had just visited the baseball star.

Throughout Jeter’s career, he had a number of high-profile relationships with the likes Mariah Carey, Jessica Biel, and Minka Kelly.

In 2016, Jeter married Hannah Davis, with whom he shares daughters Bella, four, Story, three, and River, seven months.

The Captain premieres 18 July on ESPN and ESPN+.