NOT since “Bull Durham” has the baseball groupie had such a moment – thanks to the exploits of soon-to-be-divorced Mets catcher Paul Lo Duca, caught in the midst of two alleged extramarital affairs, both with 19year-old girls.
Though neither girl refers to herself as a groupie, they fit the general profile: young, bored, easily impressed and deriving self-esteem by proxy. Note the Facebook profile of Krista Guterman, who told The Post that she definitely did not consider Lo Duca her boyfriend:
“Interests: My amazing boyfriend Paul and the METS OBV!!!” (Translation for anyone over 25 and/or without a blog: obviously.) “Favorite quotes: ‘OMG THERE’S PAUL LO DUCA’S GIRLFRIEND’ ”
Though groupies have hovered around baseball since Babe Ruth, it seems anachronistic that in postfeminist America, where girls are outpacing boys academically, that groupies should be thriving – that sleeping with the catcher (the catcher!), for many young women, remains a goal.
And yet: The baseball player, like the rock star, tends to be incredibly available, spending an inordinate amount of deathly boring time on the road. He meets the girl with not so much self-esteem, with maybe not so much going on, who derives an intoxicating degree of confidence by sleeping with someone famous, or kind of famous – a guy with the stratospheric looks, money and status that would otherwise be outside her grasp.
“It’s so different than with, say, an actor,” says Noel Ashman, owner of the Plumm, which regularly hosts pro players (like co-owner David Wells) and caters to tons of baseball groupies. “The Yankees are mythical. They are lionized.” “I do it for the self-esteem boost,” says a 26-year-old baseball diehard who asks to be identified only as Melody (her nom de groupie, if you will).
Melody’s been a fan since childhood and has been doing what she calls “the other stuff” since college, staking out players first at minor league games, then “rising up the ranks.” (Baseball groupies used to be known as “Baseball Annies”; Susan Sarandon’s groupie in Bull Durham was named “Annie” as an homage.) Melody says she’s now involved with a few major leaguers and one minor leaguer, and is a frequent, key contributor to the baseball groupie blog called “On the DL” (itsasecretsohush.blogspot.com) – which is not as well-known in the baseball community as it should be.
“Oh my God . . . this is crazy,” says one New York nightlife impresario upon viewing the site. He often throws parties for major league players (whom, he says, are still unaware of the impact of the Web, not having desk jobs and all) and says that the average girl in N.Y.C. actually has a great chance of being a successful groupie.
“Baseball players, as opposed to other athletes, hang out more at strip clubs and bridge-andtunnel type parties – for lack of a better term, Guido-type parties,” he says. The reasoning?
“Baseball players tend to come from Florida and the Midwest,” he explains.
“They don’t really respond to European model types.” Also, bridge-andtunnel venues are often popular spots for private parties because they tend to be off the radar. “I recently helped arrange a party for a fairly high-profile baseball player at a not-so-trendy place – there were 30 girls, 12 guys, and it was never in the paper,” he says.
He, the player and the player’s manager and agent compiled a list of girls, which was then vetted:
“There was one particular girl on the list – they said, ‘We don’t want her.’ ” None of this stuns Melody.
This, she says, is how it works:
She’ll get a call or a text (sometimes from one of her players, sometimes from a gobetween) to tell her that the team is in town and does she want to party?
Other times, she has to take the initiative, which is definitely more labor-intensive. She’ll get dressed up, go to a game with her compatriots, sit near the first- or third-base line and work to be noticed by the players, then follow them to whatever bar they frequent, or head for the lobby of their hotel and wait it out.
Then, after expending all that effort, she tries very hard to act as though she wound up where she has, surrounded by visiting pro athletes, partying at 1 a.m. on a weeknight, totally by accident.
“It’s the best way to go – act like you don’t care, or have no idea what they do,” she advises.
“If you see them being harassed by people, you just kind of laugh at them. You make small talk – like, ask if they’re reading a book, or if they’re enjoying their stay at the hotel.” Interestingly, Melody’s entire strategy was outlined years ago, almost identically, in a 1998 academic study called “Groupies and American Baseball.” In it, ethnographers George Gmelch and Patricia San Antonio drew upon hundreds of interviews with ballplayers and groupies to explain the psychology and motivation – which, unsurprisingly, broke down to money and status. Both sides understand that the sex is more akin to a business transaction than anything else (in fact, the authors noted that the FBI routinely lectures players about potential blackmail scams during spring training).
“They are on the prowl,” says Ron Berkowitz, president of Berk Communications, which represents Tao and the 40/40 club (both heavily frequented by players and groupies), as well as several pro athletes. “It’s not like they’re the nice girl next door.
They have a lot of practice. We tell our clients, be careful. They’re looking for something, and it’s not always a good time.” He pauses.
“Be smart – don’t hook up with a 19-year-old! Not when you’re married. Half the country didn’t know who Paul Lo Duca was until this. Groupies are looking for one thing, and it’s not love.” Melody – who says she has no interest in being a baseball wife, “because they have lower selfesteem; they have something to prove” – has little time for groupies who think that there is any romance involved on either side.
“The [players] don’t want to hold hands, or cuddle by the fire – this is what they want, and then you get out. There are a lot of girls on the boards who [act] like 12-year-olds, who wouldn’t know what to do if a player came up to them and said something sexually explicit.” The only thing Melody won’t do, she says, is go after a superstar player. “Jeter’s hot, but he’s one of the ones where your own low self-esteem comes into play. You just go, ‘No, don’t even bother,’ ” she says.
That, says New York-based psychologist Nando Pelusi, is the true “dark side” of groupie-dom:
“Groupies deny that their goal is to be more than just a screw, but that is [all] they can attain,” he says. Or, as Berkowitz puts it, “How many stories do you hear about the groupie marrying the superstar?” But because groupies are offering sex so freely – “without any provision,” as Nando puts it – rejection can be more than devastating.
“To give yourself without strings increases your chances,” Nando says, “but if you fail, it’s even worse. It’s more evidence of a self-worth issue.” Melody insists she will not become a casualty: “If I’m still doing this at 30,” she says, “something is wrong with me.” And even if, say, one of her players ever proposed, she’s not sure she’d want that, either: “I mean, of course, financially, you’d be set for life,” she says. “But why put yourself through that? Unless he’s an amazing person – and you could turn a blind eye.”