While writing today's story about the pro athletes gay men love for the Daily News' "Sex Appeal of Sports" package, it reminded me of a long ago crush I had on former pro baseball player Kevin Elster. He played for the New York Mets, Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Dodgers, among others teams, during his career.
As you can see by the photos, Kevin was movie star handsome during his playing days. But I met him before he made it to the big leagues: we were in the same chemistry class at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. He was. easily, the cutest guy in school with a body that took your breath away. He was pretty quiet and I was too shy then to even try and talk to him. I had a break between classes after chemistry and would sometimes walk behind Kevin on the way to his next class. He would often wear shorts and the view just could not be beat. It wasn't stalking in my mind then but seems kinda like it now.
Still, I have no regrets!

I knew Kevin played baseball but I didn't know how good he was until I got a press release from our sports information department (I was editor of the school newspaper at the time) which said Elster had been drafted by the New York Mets. My sports editor was quite surprised when I, who had never written a sports story, announced that I would writing a profile of Kevin! I called his coach, got some quotes and Elster's phone number. Called him up and we agreed to meet at the dugout at school the next day. I did a crash course on the New York Mets and Kevin's college career to get ready for our interview and wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into. The interview went smoothly and what I remember so well was how confident and excited Kevin was about his future. I got caught up in the enthusiasm and the story ran in the next issue with the headline: "Kevin Elster's Story Has Just Begun."
And it had. within two years of our interview, he had made it from the minors to the Mets and was part of the 1986 World Series winning team. A shortstop, he later set a record for the most errorless games in a row.
I followed Elster's career throughout the years as he had high highs and low lows that included injury and amazing comebacks. During one injury stretch, he actually appeared in the feature film "Little Big League" as, you guessed it, a pro baseball player. Hey, the cast also included Jason Robards so Elster was in good company.
When he was with the Dodgers, I saw him play several times but I was older now, and not about to pitch our sports editor a story. They had REAL sports writers for that. Besides, he woulda been onto me right away!