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Derek Jeter aired some dirty laundry in front of a national audience on Wednesday.
During an appearance on “The Tonight Show,” the famed New York Yankees captain revealed that he once wore a gold thong to help break out of a slump at the plate.
Jeter was playing a game of “True Confessions” with host Jimmy Fallon and singer Rita Ora when he picked up an envelope and read, “I once wore a thong in public in front of thousands of people.” Fallon and Ora proceeded to interrogate him, but they believed Jeter was lying until he announced it was the truth.
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SIGN UP HERE “Let me explain,” Jeter said. “I had a new teammate who I played with in 2002 and he always had a gold thong hanging from his locker. And he told me, ‘Anytime you struggle, you wear the gold thong and you’re guaranteed to get a hit.’ Now I thought the guy was crazy.
“So in 2004, I went through the worst offensive stretch of my career and every day I walked in, he would point at the thong. So finally I wore the thong.”
According to Jeter, the superstitious thong worked wonders:
“First pitch, home run.”
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The Yankees were coming off a 2003 World Series defeat against the Florida Marlins, and it took Jeter a while to get going. The Hall of Famer fell into a 0-for-32 slump before he hit a leadoff homer off Oakland A’s starter Barry Zito on April 29, 2004.
Which Yankees player helped spark the turnaround by offering Jeter the gold thong? While Jeter didn’t reveal him by name on “The Tonight Show,” Jason Giambi has shared in the past it was his and that it “works every time.”
As for how Jeter embraced the thong, he said had other clothing beneath his pinstripes.
“Now it wasn’t thong to skin,” he said. “I had shorts on underneath, so I put the thong over the shorts.”