The NY Yankees and Clay Street

Taken from today's Capital...

Daughter of baseball magnate pens her tale from Clay Street

Local author's father is Gabe Paul, Yankees' former president
By NICOLE YOUNG, Staff Writer

Published September 04, 2007

Jennie Paul's father always told her not to look at the hole in the doughnut, but rather look at the whole doughnut - the same sentiment he shared with the 1977 world champion New York Yankees.
It is with those big-picture eyes that Ms. Paul, 56, views her Clay Street neighborhood where she's writing "Yankee Princess," a book about her relationship with her father, Gabe Paul, the president of the Yankees who worked under owner George Steinbrenner.
Two and a half years ago, when she moved into her row home in the 200 block of Clay Street, she heard gunshots fired the very first night.

Tucked away just around the corner from Annapolis's historic and tourist-driven downtown is Clay Street - home of two public housing communities. It's known for open-air drug markets and other often-violent crimes, including a recent murder and numerous shootings.

Since she moved in, Ms. Paul has found that some pizza delivery places won't even deliver to her street. But the most shocking revelation came when the parents of some of her daughter's friends wouldn't let them come over to visit.

"I have no fear on this street," Ms. Paul said. "If you let your fears get the better of you, you'll never live. Either you have guts or you don't; it's in your nature."

She said she lived with fear the majority of her life, wondering if her father would ever say the three words she longed to hear: "I love you." She spent so much time dwelling on it that it consumed her life and taught her many important lessons.

It also has formed the basis of her book.

"Fathers and daughters have the most unique relationship," she said. "Everything relates back."

She's been working on different versions of her manuscript for the past six years, but as ESPN began airing the "Bronx is Burning" miniseries about the 1977 Yankees' run to victory in the World Series, Ms. Paul said she "bawled" her eyes out with each episode, sitting alone and watching a part of her life play out on the small screen.

It doesn't do her father any justice, she said.

"The more I watched it, the more I realized the real story had to be told," she said. "We never knew we were a famous family. He was just our dad."

Ms. Paul said she was about to give up on the book when she realized that sports fans still care about games that played out 30 years ago, and how the game has changed over time.

"Thirty years ago, players still signed autographs," she said. "Kids from Clay Street could still sneak into a baseball field and people with no money could go to a game."

It's evident from her modest home that sports are still a huge part of her life. There are photos of her son in hockey gear, the television is tuned to ESPN and there's a copy of Newsday Inside Sports on the coffee table.

Her extensive Yankees sports memorabilia, including her father's World Series ring, are all tucked safely away in a variety of locations far from her current house, most at the family home in Florida.

Ms. Paul, a hired chef for corporate jets, spent about 15 years in the Davidsonville area, then moved away after a divorce. She returned to Annapolis 21/2 years ago with her two children, Matthew, 19, and McKenzie, 17, and fell in love with Clay Street. She said she enjoys the proximity to downtown and the rest of the East Coast, in addition to the quaintness of the homes and the waterfront being just across the street.

Like Timm Kostenko, another recent transplant to the neighborhood who writes the "I Live On Clay Street" blog, she heard from friends and even police that she didn't want to live there, especially with children.

And Ms. Paul questions that prejudice and snap judgment she receives when people find out she's living on Clay Street.

"They may not say anything, but I know what they are thinking when they hear my address," she said. "But that's another fight for another day. You have to pick your battles."

The people on Clay Street know who she is and are willing to lend a helping hand if needed, but she said enough people speak negatively about the area to scare those who don't know the whole story.

Ms. Paul bought her home and intends to keep her roots planted deep.

"I haven't stopped hearing that this is a dangerous place," she said. "Maybe one day it will stop, but I don't know. If you go around with a jaded view - 'everything is bad' - you'll never see the good."

She hopes to finish the book within the next six months and spent the Labor Day weekend in New York to meet with her agents. She recently signed a book deal with Literary Group International out of New York, the same company that published best-sellers "Flags of Our Fathers" and "October Sky."

But writing the memoir has been a long road. She has already rewritten the manuscript to create a more sentimental tone.

She hopes the book will also become a movie, and she's telling agents that she'd like Goldie Hawn to play the title role. But she got a surprise when she mentioned Ms. Hawn's name.

"They laughed at me," she said, laughing herself as she recalled the moment. "They told me she might be able to play the Yankee grandma. So maybe then we can get Kate Hudson instead," she said, referring to Ms. Hawn's actress daughter.

Ms. Paul's sense of humor and upbeat attitude carry over to her thoughts about Clay Street.

She jokingly turns one of her father's famous "Paul-isms" into a statement about the community.

"People shouldn't look at the hole in Clay Street - unless it's a bullet hole," she said with a smile. "But they should look at the whole Clay Street."