AllyDai

TAMPA, Fla. — From his first spring training as the Yankees’ manager, in 1996, Joe Torre knew that Derek Jeter gets it. The front office had decided that Jeter, then a rookie, would be the Yankees’ starting shortstop. Torre anointed him as such to the news media. Then he read what Jeter said.

“Derek answered the same question better than I did, because he said, ‘I’m going to get an opportunity to become the shortstop,’ ” Torre said. “And that little thing, it may have been a throwaway line for other people, but I thought: ‘You know what? You’re right.’ In his mind, he had to earn the right to be the shortstop. In mine, I was giving him the right to be the shortstop. It’s different. That impressed me.”

Jeter was 21 years old then, but he quickly emerged as a leader on a veteran team that would win the World Series. Seven years later, George Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ principal owner, named him captain.

Much of what Jeter learned about leading came from Don Mattingly, who once encouraged a young Jeter to jog — not walk — across the field of an empty stadium.

One night during spring training this year, the veterans had been removed from a game and were eager to leave Legends Field. They were off the next day, the only day off for the team during camp. But there was running to do, and Jeter made them do it.

“None of us wanted to go, and he’s like, ‘Let’s go,’ ” Johnny Damon said. “He makes sure we get our work in. That’s why he’s him.”

A crucial component of leadership, Torre said, is that those being led cannot resent the leader. On a team of veterans, the players tacitly accept Jeter’s status. He is a link to the title teams of the late 1990s, he plays the game correctly and he does not betray their confidence.

“He’s very private about what he does,” said Jorge Posada, adding that Jeter never shares details of meetings. “That’s not the way you lead.”

But if off-the-field communication — in a group setting or one on one — is vital, then there is one player who seems to confound Jeter as the captain. That, of course, is Alex Rodriguez, who in many ways is everything Jeter is not. Their differences were evident during camp this year.

Rodriguez reported to camp and immediately addressed his friendship with Jeter, finally admitting it had cooled over the years. Telling the truth seemed cathartic to Rodriguez.

Jeter did not roll his eyes in response, but he might as well have. He talked about the topic the next day, but not much, insisting it was a private issue that had nothing to do with baseball.

Weeks later, both players made a trip to Sarasota. Rodriguez left the Tampa clubhouse first, trailed by a dozen reporters asking him about another flap over his contract, which offers the promise of more riches or a change of scenery because of an opt-out clause after the season.

After Rodriguez had slipped into the parking lot, Jeter strolled through the same corridor undisturbed. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. Jeter also has a mammoth contract, but it includes no loopholes, and no one asks about it.

Jeter and Rodriguez exist with no open hostility and probably no hostility at all. Their relationship is scrutinized, and while neither player likes it, each understands the interest. What bothers Jeter is the theory that by not helping Rodriguez through the regular booing he faced last season, he had failed in his role as captain.

“It was unfair,” Jeter said of criticism of his captaincy. “I’m not going to please everybody with everything I do, and that’s fine. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion. But it’s a role I take very seriously, I do the best I can with it, and when people say that, I think that’s unfair.”

The author Michael Shapiro, who wrote extensively about Pee Wee Reese’s captaincy of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 2003 book “The Last Good Season,” said he believed a captain like Reese would have found a way to help an uncomfortable teammate.

“But by the same token, this is not Duke Snider, who was younger and deferential,” Shapiro said. “This is different. Alex Rodriguez is Jeter’s peer and rival. What Jeter would have to be saying is, ‘I am your superior officer here, and I’m going to make things easier for you.’ It’s a tricky thing.”

The pitching coach Ron Guidry was a captain of the Yankees at the end of his career. He said a captain must read the personality of each player, knowing when to cajole and when to coddle.

“The team captain is a friendly shoulder,” Guidry said. “He’s the guy you want to come talk to you, unless you go and talk to him first.”

Jason Giambi, who told Sports Illustrated last year that he had challenged Rodriguez in the clubhouse during a slump, played down the idea that Jeter needed to help Rodriguez. Jeter and Rodriguez get along fine, Giambi said, and there is no controlling the fans in any case. Torre agreed.

“The way I look at it, if Derek felt that he needed to do something to make this team better, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it,” Torre said. “So I don’t think he felt that he needed to do any more than he was doing at that point in time, least of all to tell the fans to lay off Alex. These are New York fans. They’re about as knowledgeable as any sports fan, and they don’t want to be told what to do.

“When you ask me how I think they’ll receive Alex, well, they’ll cheer him because they’ll want to support him, but if he hits into a double play, they’ll boo him. That’s what happens, and it wouldn’t have changed if Derek had said, ‘Don’t boo him.’ They weren’t going to listen to Derek, because they’re still there to be entertained.”

Yet no Yankee’s voice carries as much weight with the fans as Jeter’s. The news media report anything he says about Rodriguez, and a strong call for support could, in theory, sway some fans.

Asked if he believed he could influence fans, Jeter, who will turn 33 in June, did not answer directly. Maybe yes, maybe no, he seemed to say. The point was that it was not up to him.

“It’s not my job to change the way fans act,” Jeter said. “Fans can do what they want to do. I’ve never heard somebody in any sport tell the fans how to act. Why would you even get caught up in that? It’s not your job to tell fans what to do, bottom line.”

Jeter uses that ex

Jeter probably conducts more interviews with reporters than any other Yankee. He pitches video games and Gatorade, and he dates celebrities. Yet there is much about him that fans do not know, and that extends to his role in the clubhouse.

“A lot of the things that Derek does go unseen,” Giambi said. “He does talk to guys on the side, but he doesn’t make it a media thing.”

In his new autobiography, the former Yankee Gary Sheffield said Jeter’s biracial background helped him relate to everyone, and he praised him for his even temperament. In meetings, Sheffield wrote, “he talks in positive terms. Maybe even clichés.” Sheffield said Mariano Rivera was more likely to be blunt in meetings.

Jeter said he felt responsible for answering questions about games and for representing the Yankees in public. He knows he has an image as a quiet leader who rarely speaks up, and it seems to amuse him.

There is much about his captain’s role he leaves unsaid, and that is how he wants it.

“I always find it interesting when people say, ‘Well, he’s a lead-by-example guy, he doesn’t ever say anything,’ ” Jeter said. “How do you know? I don’t do things through the media, but that doesn’t mean I don’t say things or I’m not vocal. You guys maybe don’t know about it. But you don’t have to know about everything.”

Torre would probably approve of that comment, too.