You don’t have to be a fan of the New York Yankees to appreciate writer Mark Lisanti’s brilliant creation, Derek Jeter’s Diary. The hilarious faux-record of the future Hall of Famer’s innermost thoughts and observations appears in weekly installments on grantland.com. Jeter, the composed, somewhat distant captain of the team turns out to be the perfect target for Lisanti’s needle-sharp wit.

Even lifelong Yankees fans like me have no idea what the hyper-private Derek Jeter is really like or what he really thinks about anything. So when Lisanti’s Jeter pens this after an “ugly win” in Detroit — “The W is always the most important thing, the thing you want so much that you wake up in the middle of the night, sweating through the silk sheets Reggie Jackson recommended for your custom-made, interlocking-NY-logo-shaped, alkaline-waterbed, and immediately head to the rooftop batting cage to get in some extra swings, knowing that a few more cuts in the 3 a.m. Manhattan moonlight could be the difference between a seven- or an eight-game divisional lead in mid-August.” — I’m laughing, but I’m also thinking, ‘Hmm, that could be exactly how Jeter’s mind works.’

The real point of the diary, of course, is to be funny, and Lisanti never disappoints. For example: You never quite trust a guy who spent that much of his career on the Red Sox; the entire time Johnny Damon was with us, he wasn’t allowed to wander the Stadium unsupervised because there was a credible fear he signed in New York only to assassinate Robbie Cano. That “credible fear” is a master’s touch, and the diary is full of them. So check it out. It’s a grand slam.

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