As the Yankees captain, Derek Jeter tried to hold his teammates to a high standard.

Jeter wasn’t shy when it came to keeping his colleagues in line, as seen by an on-the-field incident in 1998 between him and teammate David Wells. The longtime Yankees shortstop opened up about the verbal altercation in “The Captain,” an ESPN docuseries set to air on July 18 after the Home Run Derby.

The incident in question arose on Sept. 18, 1998 during a game between the Yankees and Baltimore Orioles. At the time, manager Joe Torre had begun to rest many of the regulars on the Yankees, who already owned a playoff spot and were on the cusp of breaking the American League single-season record for victories. As such, the skipper inserted inexperienced rookie Ricky Ledee into left field and shifted Chad Curtis to center field late in the contest.

The move soon backfired, however, following a high pop fly that was lifted over the head of Jeter at shortstop. As the trio halfheartedly attempted to track down the ball, the bloop fell between them for a single. Wells – the pitcher on the mound at the time – did little to hide his frustrations, spreading his arms in the air to express his disgust.

Jeter was quick to reprimand the pitcher for his knee-jerk reaction.

“Knowing David Wells, he didn’t mean anything by that, that’s just him, he’s animated,” Jeter said. “So I told him we don’t do that s–t around here … and that was pretty much the extent of it.”

In reality, this was just the beginning.

After hearing rumors from several umpires of a possible fight between Jeter and Wells the night before, columnist Buster Olney confronted the shortstop to set the story straight. Those rumors were shut down almost as fast as they came about. 

“What I was so amazed by was how it was like a wall came up in that moment and Derek was immediately like, ‘That never happened,’” Olney said. “Derek did not want that story to interrupt what was going on with the Yankees, which was greatness.”

With the help of his teammates, Jeter swiftly denied the accusations by asking several players on the spot if they had witnessed him challenging Wells to a fight. When the players answered no, Olney knew he had to look for another story. 

“Their job was to get a headline, and I wasn’t gonna give it to them,” Jeter said. “My job was to make sure our team was prepared and our team was ready, and the only thing that mattered to us was winning. I looked at it as a distraction.”

Despite leaving the clubhouse without the story he wanted, Olney learned something far more valuable after his interaction with Jeter.

“I thought it was remarkable that at 24 years old that Derek was enough of a leader on that team that he could go to a veteran pitcher on the field and tell him to knock it off in the way that he did with David Wells,” Olney said. “At that time in ‘98 Derek was emerging as the leader on that team.”