As Derek Jeter Closes in on 3,000 Hits, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's The Captain Offers Definitive Chronicle of Yankee Shortstop's Career

NEW YORK – With Derek Jeter approaching his milestone 3,000th hit as a New York Yankee, Ian O’Connor’s best-selling biography, The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter, published in mid-May by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is especially timely.  O’Connor, a nationally recognized sports columnist who has covered the iconic shortstop since his rookie year, provides the definitive chronicle of Jeter’s career. The book is built not only on countless one-on-one and group interviews O’Connor has done with Jeter over fifteen seasons, but also 200 new interviews O’Connor conducted with Jeter’s teammates, friends, coaches, opponents, and others.

O’Connor takes us behind the scenes of a legendary baseball life and career, from Jeter’s early struggles in the minor leagues when homesickness and fielding errors threatened a stillborn career, to the heady days of Yankee superiority and New York nightlife, to the fascinating intra-squad feud with former best friend Alex Rodriguez. Readers also witness Jeter struggling to come to terms with his declining skills and the declining favor of the only organization he ever wanted to play for, leading to a contentious contract negotiation with the Yankees that left people wondering if Jeter might end his career without his pinstripes.  All along the way Jeter has made his march toward the Hall of Fame look easy, but behind that leadership and hero’s grace there are hidden struggles and complexities that have never been explored, until The Captain.

Says O’Connor:  "Derek Jeter has always been too team-centric to be defined by personal achievements or stats, but with a diminished game at age 37, his 3,000th hit takes on new meaning. Odds are, Yankee fans won't have another chance to salute him as an individual until the not-too-distant day Jeter steps off the field for the final time."


About Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Trade & Reference Division
With nearly two-centuries of award-winning history, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Trade and Reference Division continues to publish some of the most renowned novels, non-fiction, children’s books and reference works in hardcover, Mariner Books trade paperbacks and ebooks.  Its distinguished author list includes eight Nobel Prize winners, 47 Pulitzer Prize winners, 13 National Book Award winners, and more than 100 Caldecott, Newbery, Printz, and Silbert Medal and Honor recipients. HMH publishes such distinguished authors as Philip Roth, Temple Grandin, Tim O'Brien, and Umberto Eco, as well as The Best American series®, The American Heritage® family of dictionaries, The Gourmet Cookbook and other culinary classics, the Peterson Field Guides and books by J.R.R. Tolkien. Along with a celebrated lineup of children’s authors, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group is the publisher of some of the best-loved children's books and book characters including Curious George, The Little Prince and The Polar Express. For more information, visit www.hmhbooks.com.