A few weeks ago my girlfriend’s two cousins came to visit from Minneapolis. This was their first visit to New York City, and they arrived a bit naive, expecting New York to be merely a larger version of their own metropolis, with us centrally located rather than living in a suburb. Uh-huh. At one point, the older one, a 26-year old Barbie blonde (who by the end of the trip would be dancing atop the Coyote Ugly bar), asked me, “So, do you know where Derek Jeter hangs out?” I told her that while I’m a big wheel in the cracker factory of baseball weblogs, my diamond expertise didn’t extend into the nightlife circuit.
If you live in New York, you take celebrity sightings in stride. I’ve come across Al Pacino (stumbling down St. Marks Place at 9 AM, wearing rose-tinted sunglasses), Willem Dafoe, Hillary Swank, Benicio Del Toro, Ben Stiller, Joaquin Phoenix, Drew Barrymore and her beau, Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti, and a Sopranos trifecta of Drea de Matteo, Aida Turturro, and Dominic Chianese, among others. Most of them were smaller than life, or at least shorter than they looked on the big screen. It’s something to talk about, but at the same time no big deal. I never sought any of them out, never chased them down. Until last night.
I was at home, watching a movie with Andra (my girlfriend). A half-assed drinks plan with Bryan (my brother) had apparently failed to materialize, but I was comfortable enough on the couch with my gal on one side and my beer on the other — a quiet Saturday night. Then the phone rang around 11:15, Bry finally checking in via the cellular.
“I’m at a bar with Derek Jeter,” he said.
The din in the background on his end was pretty heavy, so I said something witty: “Whaaat?”
“Derek Jeter is sitting here in the corner of this bar where I’m having drinks. He’s talking on his cell phone. I’ll give you to Scott, who can confirm that I’m not talking out my ass.”
Bryan had met Scott and Wendy, a couple of in-town b-school friends, for drinks at the World Bar in the mezzanine of Trump World Tower (“one of the most luxurious residential towers in the world,” according to the website). They’d chosen the spot because earlier they had met up with Wendy’s brother, who lived there. When the Yankee shortstop made the scene, Wendy told Bryan that Jeter’s presence is not uncommon, because he lives in the building as well.
Given my perch on the couch deep in the East Village, the bar’s location some 40 blocks uptown, and the time of night, I initally declined the invitation to join them. But while I’d been on the phone, verbally reconfirming everything Bryan had said so that Andra could hear, she’d dressed to go back out, donning a black sequined top and high heels by the time I got off the phone. “We’re going,” she said.
Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting fifteen feet from Jeter, trying to stifle shit-eating grins. Jeter sat in the corner of the balcony, wearing a long-sleeve heather gray Air Jordan t-shirt, black nylon athletic pants, and all-white Air Jordan hightops. He was talking on a cell phone while a male friend fiddled with another phone. Then they switched phones, and Jeter talked some more, nipping on what Bry guessed was a rum and Coke, apparently assembling a posse for the evening.
Bry gave a verbatim repetition of George Steinbrenner’s line in Jeter’s recent Visa commercial with the Boss: “You’re our starting shortstop, how can you possibly afford to spend two nights dancing, two nights eating out and three nights just carousing with your friends?” We laughed aloud, then started into making jokes about Manny Ramirez’s nightlife activity. Though we kept glancing over, most of the crowd — a largely Indian contingent (this bar is across from the United Nations building) — feigned obliviousness, as did Jeter. A wide-eyed gal sitting directly behind me tapped me on the shoulder, giddily asking the inevitable question. She turned to nudge her friend. “See? I told you so!”
By this time, a pair of Jeter’s friends, an athletic looking black man and a stocky, buzz-cut white guy showed up (neither of them were Yankees). One sat on the ledge overlooking the stairway while the other talked to Jeter’s companion. Finally two tall, attractive women penetrated the cone of privacy surrounding Jeter, one producing a camera from her purse and asking him if they could get their pictures taken with him. Clearly less than thrilled, he obliged, and they lingered to chat for a few minutes, much to the shortstop’s visible discomfort.
The women departed and another couple, a petite brunette with long hair and a taller man, arrived, clearly part of Jeter’s entourage. After a few minutes of chitchat and more cell phone activity, they decided to roll. A leggy blonde in a silver halter top and a long black skirt slit well up her thigh embarrassed all of us who’d been coolly observing the scene by chasing after Jeter down the stairs. She came back empty-handed as the posse departed. Headed for dancing, eating or carousing? We weren’t sure, but given the hour, we hoped the Boss wouldn’t make a fuss.