NY- Leave my son alone!
The mother of Yankee pitcher Carl Pavano rushed to his defense yesterday, a day after the Daily News revealed that a sexy Queens model was in his Porsche when he crashed it in Florida.
“As a mother it’s breaking my heart to see him crucified like this,” Anne Marie Pavano told The News yesterday from the family’s Connecticut home. “All he wants to do is pitch and be part of the team.”
The free-agent bust has been beleaguered by injuries and hasn’t pitched at Yankee Stadium since last July.
He was just about ready to come back when he hydroplaned across a wet street into an eighteen-wheeler on Aug.15, breaking two ribs, Pavano’s father, Carmen, said.
“He was right on the edge of getting back,” Carmen Pavano said. “By this weekend, he would have been back at Yankee Stadium.”
Pavano initially kept the accident a secret from the Yankees, who signed him to a four-year, $39.9 million deal before the 2005 season. But during a rehab assignment in the minors, Pavano felt pain in his torso – and knew he had to come clean, his dad said.
Asked whether he was angry that his son kept the accident secret, Pavano was pragmatic: “He made a decision and now he’s got to live with it.”
Carmen Pavano said he didn’t know about the wreck until his son talked with reporters in a telephone news conference. The pitcher did not identify the passenger – Gia Allemand, who has been a Miss Italia, Miss South Beach and Miss American Teen – at that time.
The elder Pavano said he also did not know about Allemand until he saw The News’ story. He said he intended to ask his son about her.
“He’s pretty private and he’s always been that way,” he said. “We don’t grill him about what he does.”
In The News’ story, the driver of the eighteen-wheeler, Ernest DeLaura, told The News the impact was so hard it blew out the passenger window of Pavano’s car. Before authorities arrived, DeLaura said, a male friend of Pavano came and spirited the 22-year-old away. DeLaura said he knew who she was because his boss from the Solid Waste Authority of West Palm Beach took Allemand’s name for an internal report.
But police in West Palm Beach offered a different version of the facts yesterday.
Lt. Charles Reed, of the West Palm Beach Police Department’s criminal investigations division, confirmed that there was a female present at the scene who identified herself as a passenger in the vehicle.
He said cops completed a Law Enforcement Short Form Report because there were no injuries.
“This report lists drivers’ information only,” Reed wrote in an e-mail response to The News. “The passenger was not whisked away. Mr. Pavano was very cooperative with police.”
Reed did not return a call seeking further comment last night.
Allemand couldn’t be reached yesterday. But her 70-year-old grandmother was told about the accident because the two were supposed to meet the next day.
“She wasn’t hurt or anything,” Terry Allemand said from her West Palm Beach, Fla., home, adding that she did not see her granddaughter the next day.
She said her granddaughter has been dating the Yankee for months and that the two might be “getting serious.”
“I think she likes him and they’ve been dating a while,” the 70-year-old said.
She said she was unhappy about The News’ headline that referred to her granddaughter as a “hottie.”
But grandpa didn’t seem to mind.
“She is a hottie,” he shouted from the background.
Meanwhile, Anne Marie Pavano said she and her husband “both have broken hearts” over their son’s dilemma.
“He’s been working so hard,” she said. “It’s like he has a black cloud over his head.”