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The last two episodes of the new series about the iconic New York Yankee Derek Jeter is now available to stream online. “The Captain” arrived on ESPN+ last month with new episodes airing on a weekly basis.

The docuseries, directed by Randy Wilkins and executive produced by Spike Lee and Mike Tollin, features dozens of intimate interviews with Jeter, alongside those in the athlete’s inner circle, such as his parents Dorothy and Dr. Charles Jeter, his sister Sharlee Jeter and his wife Hannah Jeter. Alex Rodriguez, Daryl Strawberry, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, manager Joe Torre and Dave Winfield also make appearances.

Through these conversations, viewers learn more about Jeter’s meteoric rise to success and the particular hurdles Jeter had to jump over as a biracial athlete. One revealing conversation with his family underscores how Jeter had to “work twice as hard” to reach his goals, even while journalists refused to acknowledge these setbacks,...

Randy Wilkins connects with Derek Jeter, subject of his seven-part ESPN documentary series, The Captain, on a few levels.

For starters, Wilkins is a lifelong New York Yankees fan, and Jeter was the linchpin of five World Series championships captured by the team between 1996 and 2009. In his filmmaking career, Wilkins also can relate. While he wasn’t a teen-ager like Jeter when he got his big break, getting the chance to tell the story of his hero resulted from a surprise endorsement from Spike Lee, who is an executive producer of the series.

“In June 2020, he called me to check up on me,” Wilkins recalled in an interview. “He asked me who my favorite Yankee was, just out of the blue. I said, ‘Well, Derek Jeter.’ I was very confused as to why he was asking me that. And the next thing he said was, ‘Derek Jeter wants to do...