TAMPA — On the verge of reporting to spring training, Brett Gardner asked a judge to keep an obsessed fan away from him and his family, and the Yankees want her banned from all ballparks.
Gardner’s lawyer went to Bronx civil court Thursday for an order of protection against Gina Devasahayam, who says she’s the 36-year-old Yankees outfielder’s “future wife” and that he sends her sexual “signals” from the field.
They have never even met.
At George M. Steinbrenner Field here, security guards have been given her photo with orders not to allow her in the gates or near Gardner, an All-Star in 2015 and Gold Glove winner in 2016 Position players were scheduled to report to camp Monday. Pitchers and catchers reported to camp Wednesday.
The 46-year-old Devasahayam, who says she has a Ph.D. and calls herself a biotech entrepreneur, nearly sneaked into the visitors’ clubhouse at Camden Yards in Baltimore in August to see Gardner before team security booted her from the stadium. And after the Yankees kicked her out of Yankee Stadium when she tried to attend a playoff game in October, she sued the team, Gardner and Major League Baseball.
“I request the Court to grant me access to the Stadium in accordance with MLB fan policy and also in accordance with ‘Significant other’ of MLB player Brett Gardner,” she wrote in the lawsuit. “I am a Yankees fan and also the future wife of Brett Gardner.”
Gina Devasahayam. (Photo courtesy of Gina Devasahayam)
In a strange and often incomprehensible lawsuit, which the Yankees have asked a Bronx civil court judge to dismiss, Devasahayam says the Yankees not only are preventing her from getting close to Gardner, but she also alleges they have hacked into her Twitter account to steal her intellectual property.
Detailed in the lawsuit are some of the ways she says Gardner has hinted at his interest in her:
- In a video of Gardner in the dugout, Gardner “motions with his hip on the stairs as though he is having sexual intercourse with me.”
- She says Gardner makes “a sad face” during home games when she does not attend. She adds that Gardner was once ejected from a game by an umpire who likely received “signals” from her social media that she was angry with the outfielder.
- After “3 years of romancing online,” she said she started attending games “because I see that Brett desires this.”
When an NJ Advance reporter noted in an interview with her that Gardner was married, Devasahayam was unmoved.
“That is not of importance,” she said, before speculating on the state of Gardner’s marriage.
A Yankees spokesman and Gardner’s agent, Joe Bick of Pro Star Management, declined comment when contacted by NJ Advance Media about the lawsuit. Gardner didn’t respond to a message from NJ Advance Media.
Gardner’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit has not been published on the court website with other files on the case, but in her court documents, Devasahayam details parts of the Yankees’ defense against her. She says the league is portraying her as a “deranged rambling woman on the loose” and arguing that she is a “threat to order and safety.”
It all started in October 2015, when Devasahayam says she first emailed then-Yankees manager Joe Girardi to inform him of her interest in Gardner: “I was fascinated by him,” she told NJ Advance Media. Subsequently, she says, sent Gardner “a love letter.”
Though the Yankees want her banned, Devasahayam insists Gardner wants her around.
“You know, when he plays, he signals,” Devasahayam told NJ Advance Media. “They have their own signals, first of all, for pitch type and all that. ... And then there’s another thing called romantically and sexually signaling toward me. That is how our relationship has progressed because he has started sexually signaling toward me.”
Brendan Kuty may be reached at bkuty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.