Broward County Sherrif via European Pressphoto Agency
Jim Leyritz failed a field sobriety test and refused a Breathalyzer.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Autumn had always been good to Jim Leyritz.
Most of the time, Leyritz was just a workaday Yankee on a team of stars, but the postseason seemed to be his stage, as he twirled his bat at the plate and hit home runs when it mattered most.
But this has been a very different fall for Leyritz. Now 44 and eight years into his retirement from baseball, he has been shunned by the Yankees. The nearly $11 million he earned as a player is gone, along with his lucrative speaking career. Leyritz is awaiting trial in Florida on charges of manslaughter and driving under the influence of alcohol after a crash last December that killed 30-year-old Fredia Ann Veitch. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
The player once known for his designer sunglasses and outsize swagger is so broke that he said he had sought aid from the Baseball Assistance Team, a charity that helps former players through tough times. “They basically have been a savior,” Leyritz said in a recent interview. “If it wasn’t for them, I don’t know what I would have done.”
The fable of the self-destructive athlete has been told before, and the Leyritz version follows a familiar outline: misspent fortune, messy divorce, fast lifestyle and a trip to the county jail. But other details of his life do not fit as easily into the typical narrative.
Leyritz is the primary caregiver to his three sons, ages 13, 12, and 7, who live with him in the spotless home he rents in Davie, a Fort Lauderdale suburb. After his divorce and custody battle, friends say, Leyritz started over and began earning a comfortable income from television appearances and corporate speaking engagements.
Then came the crash. A jury will decide whether it was the result of criminal behavior, and the trial is scheduled to begin next Monday. Leyritz’s friends and advocates say that no matter the outcome, his children need him for emotional and financial support.
A day after Veitch died, one of her children sent her a text message, writing, “I love you momma!! Rest in peace,” according to telephone records in the state attorney’s file.
Howard Pomerantz, a lawyer for Veitch’s family, said no one was helping her 14-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. He described Leyritz as “someone who has destroyed the lives of a number of people” and questioned the propriety of giving him assistance.
“I’d be interested in learning whether the Baseball Assistance Team takes into consideration whether they’re pouring salt in the wounds in the victims in this case,” he said.
Jim Martin, the executive director of the Baseball Assistance Team, spoke about the program only in general because of privacy restrictions, and declined to say whether Leyritz was receiving help. In 2008, the charity has awarded more than 175 assistant grants to people affiliated with baseball. But he said he did not pass judgment on those in need, especially when children were involved.
“It’s not the kids’ fault when someone does something stupid,” Martin said.
Leyritz’s predicament is starkly different from his days as a Yankee. He was with the team from 1990 through 1996, then in 1999 and 2000. He is probably best known for his three-run homer in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series, which tied the score and led to a victory over Atlanta.
In the clubhouse, Leyritz had a reputation as a brash upstart, and he was overshadowed by teammates like Don Mattingly and Derek Jeter. Still, fans appreciated his clutch performances in the postseason. By the time he left baseball in 2000, Leyritz had earned at least $10.7 million in 11 major league seasons, according to the Web site baseball-reference.com.
My Children, ‘My Life’
Like many professional athletes facing retirement, Leyritz struggled with living an ordinary life. He and his wife, Karri Leyritz, consumed lavishly during his Yankees career. In court filings, Leyritz’s lawyer acknowledged that they had spent most of his baseball earnings by 2002, when he filed for divorce. By then, little was left to fight over besides their three sons.
The 12 volumes of divorce records on file at the Broward County courthouse depict a vicious battle in which the couple bickered over everything from who should get the Ford Expedition to the whereabouts of Leyritz’s 1999 World Series ring.
In 2004, a social worker concluded in a custody evaluation that neither Leyritz was an ideal parent. Karri Leyritz’s live-in boyfriend had a long criminal history, and in 2003, she tested positive for benzodiazepines, antianxiety drugs for which she did not have a prescription. Jim Leyritz, according to the report, used amphetamines and drank heavily as a player. The social worker also reported that a marriage counselor determined that he was struggling with “issues centered around learning to cope with life transitions and adjusting to life without baseball.”
He and his wife, Leyritz told the social worker, had led a “partying lifestyle.” But he also said: “My life is my children. I have had my fun, now they are more important to me.”
The social worker ultimately recommended that the Leyritzes share parenting responsibilities, but that Jim Leyritz be the primary residential parent.
Although the Leyritzes were unemployed, they frequently placed the children in after-school day care and, in Karri’s case, left them with baby sitters, according to the custody evaluation and the transcript of a hearing before the divorce judge. Teachers reported that the children were often absent when in Karri’s care, and when they did attend, they did not have lunch, were missing socks or wore disheveled, torn uniforms.
Judge Lawrence Korda admonished the Leyritzes to spend more time with their children. “To me, if two parents aren’t working and both of them are posing as incredibly involved parents, then go get your kids,” he said.
After an initial interview in September, Leyritz declined to answer further questions, including inquiries about his divorce, saying he was speaking exclusively to another publication. But Karri Leyritz said the breakup coincided with his exit from professional baseball and was a difficult period for both of them. “We were both just going through a terrible time,” she said.
Now, Karri Leyritz said, the children spend nearly equal time with each parent. She said they had begun to settle into a routine.
“He’s a great father and that’s really all,” she said. “Obviously, we didn’t get along as husband and wife, but you have to come to an understanding.”
Leyritz’s easygoing, charismatic demeanor made him popular on the speaking circuit. Last year, he received repeat requests to appear at corporate sales meetings, Little League banquets and Yankees luxury suites, engagements that his agent, Andrew Levy, said paid up to $7,500 each. Leyritz said he attended 50 events in 2007, in addition to working that season as a Yankees reporter for ESPN Radio in New York. His contract for 2008 was not extended, a decision that was made before he was arrested.
“He was starting to turn a corner,” said Todd Watson, a close friend. “He was starting to become a household name.”
Whose Fault?
Everything changed early on Dec. 28, 2007. After a night out with friends to celebrate his birthday, Leyritz ran a red light about 3:20 a.m. and crashed into a car driven by Veitch, who had been drinking after finishing her shift as a bartender, according to authorities. She was thrown from the car and later died.
An officer on the scene described Leyritz as having bloodshot, glassy eyes and a flushed face. The officer reported smelling a “slight odor of alcohol coming from his breath as he spoke.” Leyritz refused to submit to a breath test and failed a field sobriety test. His blood alcohol level, tested at 6:10 a.m., was 0.14, well above Florida’s limit of 0.08.
Leyritz is also the defendant in a civil case filed this year by Veitch’s estate. Although he declined to speak about the accident, court records show that the defense will probably argue that Leyritz cannot be entirely blamed for Veitch’s death because she was also drunk — her blood alcohol level was 0.18 — and she was not wearing a seat belt, according to the autopsy report.
“I think the evidence is so favorable on his side that ultimately he’s going to be exonerated of all charges on the criminal case, and I think we’re going to succeed in the defense of the civil case,” said Jeff Ostrow, a lawyer for Leyritz. “Not only was he not negligent, but she was the direct and proximate cause of the accident.”
Her lawyer holds the opposite view. “Whether or not she was intoxicated is not relevant, because she was driving with a green light, in her own lane of traffic, within the speed limit, not breaking any laws and she was not in any way the cause of this accident,” Pomerantz said.
In a deposition for the civil case, an eyewitness, Karen Rivera, reported that Leyritz tried to shake Veitch’s leg after the accident and asked if Veitch had been drinking. According to a police video taken on the scene, Leyritz told an officer, “She hit me pretty good,” and later did not appear to react when he was told Veitch had died.
Friends say that Leyritz was in shock after the accident and that his involvement in it — guilty or not — has been difficult.
“He came and stayed with me for the first three days,” Karri Leyritz said. “It was horrendous. I don’t wish that pain on my worst enemy. Believe me, it hit him.”
In the interview, Leyritz declined to comment on his feelings about the accident. But he did sometimes show frustration at those who have avoided him since the crash. He said he was not invited to the All-Star Game in the Bronx or to the Yankee Stadium finale this year. Leyritz said that he had a ticket to the final game but that he was ejected from the V.I.P. area by a security guard and sat in the stands with fans instead.
The Yankees did not respond to requests for comment.
“Am I disappointed that there’s not a little bit more support there?” Leyritz said. “I would say a little bit. But at the same time, I really, truly understand the reasonings.”
Watson said his friend deserved better.
“He’s not a leper and he’s innocent,” Watson said. “You’re guilty until you’re proven innocent in this country, unfortunately.”
Leyritz said the Yankees were not alone in snubbing him.
“If it was just them doing it, I would say yeah,” he said. “But you know what? It’s everything.”
Second Chances
In the year since the accident, Leyritz has made unpaid appearances at just three events. In September, he posed with fans and signed autographs at Suburban Golf Club in Union, N.J., to benefit the local chamber of commerce.
Bill Liederman, the event organizer, said his friend Leyritz was still a Yankees hero.
“This is a country of second chances,” said Liederman, the former owner of Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant in Manhattan. “There is no Yankee fan alive who doesn’t think, regardless of the outcome of the trial, that he deserves one.”
Levy, Leyritz’s agent, said that since the accident, corporate event organizers have asked to book Leyritz, only to say a few hours later that “it’s just not going to work out for us right now.”
Levy did not have to ask why they canceled. “I knew the reason,” he said.
For now, Leyritz continues to depend on payments from the Baseball Assistance Team, and he hopes that if he is exonerated, the work will return. The charity is not paying his legal bills, he said, just basic living expenses.
“Things so I am able to put a roof over my kids’ head and food on the table,” he said.
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