Yankees catcher Jose Trevino fulfills childhood dream by meeting Derek Jeter

Early Sunday evening brought the fulfillment of a childhood dream for Jose Trevino.

And while the catcher, in his words, “really tried not to be too much of a fanboy” when he at last met Derek Jeter, he couldn’t help himself.

“The young boy in me was definitely doing back flips,” Trevino said late Wednesday afternoon by his locker in the Yankees’ clubhouse as he recalled the meeting, his smile similar to the one he wore in the green room Sunday upon meeting the Hall of Famer in Manhattan. “Cool moment for me. My family was really happy for me because they knew how much that meant to me. I know everybody has a hero, everybody has somebody they look up to, so when I got to meet him, that was that moment for me.”

The 29-year-old Trevino scored a ticket, through Major League Baseball, to Sunday’s screening of the first episode of the upcoming seven-part ESPN documentary, "The Captain," which took place at the Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary’s debut is slated for July 18 on ESPN.

“Derek Jeter was my childhood hero,” Trevino said. “I tried to model everything I did after Derek Jeter. The way I played, the confidence I played with. I read his book when I was young. I would tell people that I was going to be the next shortstop for the Yankees because he was the one saying it at like five years old.”

A big part of the Jeter legend, of course, revolves around him growing up a die-hard Yankees fan in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and, from a young age, telling anyone who would listen that he one day would be the starting shortstop for the Yankees.  

Much of that is covered in the book Trevino referenced, “The Life you Imagine: Life Lessons for Achieving Your Dreams,” which came out in 2000 and was written with current YES analyst Jack Curry, then a baseball writer for the New York Times.

It was also a significant chunk of Part 1 of the documentary and Trevino’s only reaction afterward could be summarized this way: when can I see the other six episodes?

“When the episode ended, you could feel the room saying, ‘No. I’ll sit here for 10 more hours,’” Trevino said. “Everybody wanted more.”

Trevino, who grew up a Yankees fan in Corpus Christi, Texas, seemingly hasn’t stopped smiling since the Yankees traded for him toward the end of spring training. He was acquired when the intended backup catcher, Ben Rortvedt, went down with an oblique injury, the thought being he would spell the starter, Kyle Higashioka.

But Trevino, because of his work offensively, has slowly wrested everyday starting duties from Higashioka, who did start Wednesday night. Trevino is hitting .300 with five homers and an .836 OPS in 40 games compared to Higashioka, who came into Wednesday hitting .172 with two homers and a .505 OPS in 35 games.

When Trevino speaks of this season being a “dream come true,” it’s not meaningless verbiage.

Nor was it when it came to meeting Jeter.

“I really don’t remember what I called him,” Trevino said, almost sheepishly. “I don’t know if I called him Jeets, Derek, Captain … I don’t know. I either called him Derek or Jeets. I think I called him Jeets.”

In recalling the moments leading up to the encounter, Trevino said he was borderline shocked at what he heard.

“Somebody came over to me and they were like, ‘He wants to talk to you, he wants to meet you,’ ” Trevino said. “I was like, ‘He doesn’t want to talk to me.’ And I didn’t expect to. I went to that thing purely off of being a fan. I didn’t anticipate someone coming over and saying, ‘He wants to talk to you.’ And I don’t even know if he said that but that’s what they were telling me.”

Trevino, whose first Yankee team in his memory bank is the 1996 one that won the club’s first World Series since 1978, politely declined to say what he and Jeter discussed, other than to characterize it as “very meaningful to me.”

“That’s a conversation,” the catcher said, smiling still, “I’ll hold onto forever between me and him.”