A fish out of water

Sporting News, The, July 1, 1996 by Michael P. Geffner

South Beach, Miami's St. Tropez, is a place of privilege, beauty and quirky self-indulgence -- of expensive cars inching, fender-to-freshly-waxed-fender, along a bustling beachfront strip of Ocean Drive; glittering-white sidewalks lined immaculately with palms; and throngs of neon-thonged Rollerbladers, seemingly oblivious to everything in Walkmans and wraparounds, dancing and twirling and whizzing through the streets.

And in the chic heart of what's called the Art Deco district, between 10th and 11th streets, there's the well-known Clevelander's, an outdoor hangout with green-marble tables shaded by dark-green canopies, twin bars by the head of a swimming pool and an obscenely loud jukebox with a bass so juiced you'll swear it's pounding from inside your chest.

The central theme, of course, as with most of the "in" places around here, is not so much about eating and drinking as it is about seeing and being seen. It's an odd place to find someone from so clear across the other side of the tracks, especially someone so introverted and painfully uncomfortable around high society (even though he makes six mil a year), someone who grew up hard in a different kind of Florida, in the ghetto of Tampa's Belmont Heights.

Yet since late March, upon his moving to a Biscayne Bay high-rise just 10 minutes away, Gary Sheffield has made this place his steady lunch spot, coming here nearly every day--when the Marlins are home--and nestling inconspicuously into a somewhat removed corner table facing The Strip.

"I just like to sit here, eat my pasta and watch the people going by," Sheffield says over a late-afternoon lunch, his low, soft voice barely audible above the buzzing din and reggae. "It may not sound like much, but I don't need very much."

On this brilliantly sunny Sunday before a night game against the Dodgeirs, Sheffield looks like just another beachcomber on the make (though he emphatically denies it): sunglasses, a beige designer baseball cap, matching white-linen shorts and short-sleeve shirt and brown leather sandals. There's the jewelry, too: diamond studs in both ears, a thin gold chain around his neck and a Rolex he hardly ever checks around his right wrist.

He's sipping iced tea now, having finished off a bowl of pasta he peppered liberally with hot sauce, and lolling back in his chair when a young woman in a short white dress suddenly catches his eye; unlike what you'd expect from a young star athlete, he doesn't leer or say anything, just cranes his neck slightly, following her path, before quickly retreating, never once changing from his expressionless expression. Which brings up some facts about Sheffield: He cracks an emotion about once a day--his smiles flickering out within seconds--and almost never initiates conversation; he's big on eye contact, small on small talk. "I'll be here sometimes," he says, "and I won't be thinking about a thing. And most of the time, I'm not looking to talk to anybody, either. I'm just looking to relax my mind. That's all. Just to get away from everything. This is the way I'm looking at my life now: I just wanna hang out in places like this, with people who have as much--or more--to lose as I do, and just get lost in the crowd."

It is a mindset, mind you, very new to Sheffield, and it wasn't reached during some religious awakening in the middle of the night but all but crashed down on him a day last October, when, while he cruised his old 'hood in his cream-colored Mercedes, some kid just jumped out of the darkness and, without warning, blasted a.25 through Sheffield's window. It was by sheer dumb luck--and a degree of bad aim--that the slug merely grazed his left shoulder, leaving nothing more than a pinkish flesh wound the size of a dime. But it doesn't take a genius to know the outcome easily could have been much different; a few inches here, an inch there, and it strikes him flush in the heart.

To this day, with the case still open and not a single suspect, Sheffield isn't sure whether it was simply an attempted carjacking, a random attack, or something more sinister, like a murder plot perhaps, by an old acquaintance he once refused money, or even a spurned girlfriend. Actually, he doesn't know what to think anymore. He only knows he's moving in another direction now, and quickly--away, finally, from the roots he always held onto so strongly, and, as some friends assert away finally from feeling guilty about making it. "It's all definitely in black and white now," he says. "I mean, I always liked hanging around the old neighborhood, and I liked being around ghetto people--I felt comfortable around them--but it's definitely cost me. And I'm not willing to pay the price anymore. A lot of the places I went to, I'm not going anymore. The routes I took, I don't take anymore. Because the old way ain't workin' for me, and it's a time in my life when I don't want to five day-to-day anymore."

Things crystalized for Sheffield just before Christmas, in New York, when by special invitation he attended the premiere of Waiting To Exhale and its star-studded after-party. According to those around him that evening, Sheffield was so intimidated by the Hollywood scene he barely moved or uttered a word. "I felt totally out of place," he says. "I mean, even walking down the red carpet was embarrassing for me. I said to myself, 'What am I doing here? And why am I seated in a VIP section next to Whitney Houston? I'm no star.' But then, later, I met Bobby Brown and Al B. Sure, guys who I idolize, and I find out they're big fans of mine. It was really cool, you know. So after that, I'm thinking to myself, 'Maybe I should've been hangin' out with people like this a long time ago. People who don't need me for anything."