Former Yankees Captain Derek Jeter said Wednesday night on “The Tonight Show” that he once wore a gold thong during a game to help his team out of their slump.
Jeter and fellow guest Rita Ora were playing “True Confessions” with host Jimmy Fallon in which each had to say one true thing and one false thing about their life, with the others having to determine which is true or false.
“I once wore a thong in public in front of thousands of people,” Jeter said. Ora and Fallon guessed that Jeter was lying, but he explains it was the truth.
“It is the truth. I’m going to ultimately regret playing this game, but let me explain. I had a new teammate that 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 thing, you’re guaranteed to get a hit.’ Now, I thought the guy was crazy,” Jeter explained.
Derek Jeter shared the story how he wore a teammate’s (Jason Giambi) gold thong to break out of his 0-for-32 slump back in 2004 🤣
(via @FallonTonight)pic.twitter.com/ryY4kfNLpE
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) February 2, 2023
“So in 2004, I went through the worst offensive stretch of my career, and every day I’d walk in, he’d point at the thong. So finally, I wore the thong. Now it wasn’t thong to skin; I had shorts on underneath, so I put the thong over the shorts: first pitch, home run.” (RELATED: Derek Jeter Worries People Have Lost Sight Of What Athletes Are Protesting)
The thong belonged to Jason Giambi, who played first base. Giambi said Jeter “had to get out of a slump,” according to nj.com.
“The golden thong is legendary,” Giambi reportedly added. “It was just, you know, it was his first slump. I don’t think the guy’s ever slumped in his career. He’s unbelievable. You know, the gold thong, he had to get out of it.”