Derek Jeter finally confirmed he wore a lucky golden thong under his Yankees uniform to break out of a slump

• Derek Jeter resorted to an unconventional undergarment choice to break out of an MLB hitting slump.
• In a TV interview, the Yankees legend admitted to wearing a lucky golden thong under his pinstripes in 2004.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And no one knows that better than Derek Jeter, apparently.

During an appearance on Wednesday's airing of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," the Yankees legend confirmed what had long been rumored; he once wore a lucky "gold thong" during an actual Major League Baseball game.

During the spring of 2004, Jeter was suffering one of the worst hitting slumps of his historic baseball career. He had gone a full nine days — and a whopping 32 at-bats — without a hit.

An unidentified teammate — thought by many to be first baseman and noted power hitter Jason Giambi — swore to Jeter that a golden thong hanging from his locker was the trick to ending his slump. When said teammate joined the team two years earlier, Jeter recalled him saying "'anytime you struggle, you wear the gold thong, and you're guaranteed to get a hit.'"

"Now, I thought the guy was crazy," Jeter told Fallon Wednesday night. "So in 2004, I went through the worst offensive stretch in my career, and every day I'd walk in and he'd point at the thong."

By April 29 — as the Yankees prepared to host the Oakland A's — the then-four-time World Series champion and MLB All-Star was willing to try almost anything.

"So finally, I wore the thong," Jeter admitted. "Now it wasn't thong to skin. I had shorts on underneath, so I put the thong over the shorts."

"First pitch, home run," he added with a smile.

Fallon and fellow guest Rita Ora exclaimed in disbelief at Jeter's story, but reporting from the time validates the timeline — aside from the detail of his atypical undergarments, of course. An article published in The New York Times the following day confirmed that "in his first at-bat against the Oakland Athletics' Barry Zito last night, Jeter crushed a first-pitch homer deep over the left-center field wall near Monument Park at Yankee Stadium.

"The blast emphatically ended a slide that had reached 0-for-32," the article continued.

Check out the full "True Confessions" segment of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" — in which Jeter details his gold thong saga — below: