GARY SHEFFIELD'S Coast-to-Coast Mansions - Los Angeles Dodger

Ebony, June, 1999 by Kevin Chappell

Baseball's highest-paid player has new wife and million-dollar mansions in Florida and California

HE THROWS expensive parties, wears designer suits and sports diamond earrings with enough carats to choke Bugs Bunny. He has a fleet of antique cars to die for, and a penchant for deep-sea fishing excursions that would make the most avid angler envious. And as if that were not enough, the mere mention of his $2.6-million waterfront mansion in Florida, and his 83.2 million estate in California both of which are decorated with more than 82 million in furnishings--is enough to make a working man cry.

But don't hate Gary Sheffield because he lives a well-heeled existence. Throughout the years, the highest-paid--and arguably the best--player in baseball has given folks plenty of other reasons not to care for him. In fact, there was a time when the 30-year-old Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder loved to be disliked. "I went through a stage in my life when I didn't want people to like me. I wanted people to hate me," says the tour-time All-Star and one-time batting champion. "I wanted people to say that I was a jerk because I knew the only time they liked me was when I did well on the baseball field. So I would do things to aggravate people because I knew I had the power to go out and hit a home run and put smiles on their faces."

Growing up in Tampa's rough-and-ramble Belmont Heights neighborhood, Sheffield never had much in the way of material things, only unconditioned love from his mother and stepfather, and their warnings to stay in his own neighborhood, mind his own business. And that's what he did, never even venturing to the beach--15 minutes away--until he was 18 years old.

Instead of cultivating a passion for the sea, he developed a love for the game of baseball. In fact, as a kid, he says, baseball became everything to him. At Hillsborough High School in Tampa, Sheffield was known as much for his disdain for losing as for the towering home runs that he hit on his way to breaking virtually every school record and being selected the top high school player in the country. Without fail, every time his team lost, he would cry like it was the end of the world.

Sheffield took that same die-hard attitude with him to the big leagues in 1986, and it wasn't long before baseball ran roughshod over him, leaving him, at times, angry and misguided. Having seen firsthand--through his uncle Dwight Gooden's battle to overcome drug addiction--the trappings of the game, Sheffield still managed to get himself into some deleterious situations.

As a result, his baseball accomplishments--like his serious run in 1992 to become the first National League Triple Crown winner since Ducky Medwiek led the league in batting average, runs batted in and home runs 55 years earlier--were overshadowed by such personal indiscretions as run-ins with police, reporters and fans, and problematic relationships with women, having fathered three children by three different women.

It all came to a head in 1995. Driving through his old Belmont Heights neighborhood, Sheffield was shot by a would be carjacker. Fortunately, it was only a flesh wound in his left shoulder, but the incident was enough to make Sheffield re-evaluate his life and his baseball careen "When I looked back at it, I realized that the type of attitude I had wasn't worth it. It's called `fighting the system,' and you don't need to unnecessarily fight the system. I value life more now, and don't value baseball as my God."

Somewhat surprising, however, is the extent of Sheffield's transformation. Having led the Florida Marlins to a World Series championship in 1997, he now says if he had it to do all over again, he might not have pursued a professional baseball career at all. "For all the things I've put up with and dealt with through my baseball career, I often ask myself, `Was it worth it?' And I can honestly say, `no.'"

Don't get him wrong. The 12-year-veteran, who says he found God in a Denny's late one night, wouldn't trade his breathtaking 15,000-square-foot estate on the Gulf Coast in St. Petersburg--or his 10,000-square-foot home outside of Los Angeles--for all the 82.99 Grand Slam meals in the world. But the new Sheffield also wouldn't sell his soul for a ninth-inning grand slam either. "I look at it like this: God says you're supposed to live well. He didn't say you were supposed to be poor. He wants you to have nice things. He wants you to enjoy things," says Sheffield, who admits to owning more than 100 suits and just as ninny pairs of shoes. "But what do you value most--material things or living right? Baseball or God? Do you give back? Do you help others who might not be as fortunate? So I'm content with what I have, and thank God every day for everything He has blessed me with."

Sheffield was in the midst of building his dream house two years ago when the Marlins' owner dismantled the championship team and traded him to the Dodgers. Having signed a six-year, $61-million contract, Sheffield decided to not only keep his Florida home, but when the Dodgers gave him an additional 85 million in "relocation" money which increased his pay to $17 million this season, he bought an equally impressive home in Los Angeles' swank Bel Air community. Sheffield now splits his time between the two homes.