The Andy Cohen Diaries (43 page)

Then we're told to leave our guests behind and we go with our teammates to the locker room to get suited up. My locker is between Ozzie Smith and Andre Dawson, and Piazza is on the other side of Dawson. As I stare at this locker overflowing with gear (it's all there: pants, shoes, underwear, socks, a bat, glove, hat—the whole thing—and I know what I'll be wearing for Halloween next year) I realize I am on a
team
with these guys (locker room inspiration!), I have to not only play for the crowd but I have to play in front of
them
. More importantly, I have no clue whether I have to strip down and wear the Under Armour underwear they gave me, or if I can keep mine on. Maybe their undies give you extra warmth or something, what the hell do I know? Conscious of being the only gay guy in the locker room, I don't want to actually make eye contact with anyone below the waist to find out the answer to my question. Finally I sheepishly ask Ozzie if we have to wear the undies or what. He says it's a personal choice based on comfort. Crisis averted, I decide that nothing comes between me and my Calvins. I keep talking to Charlie in the locker room, mulling over whether to wear long shorts instead of baseball pants (Piazza does, we don't), whether or not to tuck pants into our high socks (Ozzie says don't, so we don't), and what we bring to batting practice (Glove? Yes, to break it in. Bat? They'll have bats there. Phone? Yes.) and how to wear our hats (low). I love my outfit—I mean
uniform
—but I wish I could've gotten my pants taken in a little in the crotch, especially when I see January in hers. “Did you have a fitting in LA before the game?” I joke but I am not joking. I really think she did. She laments her cameltoe. The grass isn't always greener.

Eli says I look like an actual baseball player, which is all I need to hear. We all get on the bus to BP at FanFest, where I am going to have to attempt to hit balls in front of my teammates. I go to the furthest cage with Charlie, Adrian Peterson, and two wounded warriors from Iraq—one with one leg and another with one arm—who pound the ball. I step up and pretend I'm with Mike back in NYC and guess what—I hit
every single ball
. When it's done, Fred says I did great and gives me a couple tips, which I promptly forget and then vow not to step back into the cage because I don't want to ruin my streak. Problem is Eli didn't see me bat, so I step back in and hit every single ball
again
.

We head back to the ballpark and in the bus I ask January Jones if she feels like we already kind of did it and should be allowed to go home. Why do we actually have to play the game? We do and we have ninety minutes to kill. We sit with Andre Dawson at dinner, who seems to not want to have a thing to do with us and the behind-the-scenes-of-
RHONY
stories I'm laying on Eli. They bring in a group of Make-A-Wish kids and my heart explodes watching the baseball players sign autographs for them. I'm pulled out to go say hi to the owners of the Twins—it's one big family that owns the team and they're all in this gorgeous box eating way better food than we are downstairs (“Isn't that how it should be?” one of the wives crows when I comment on it) and I'm shocked to get my first look at the field and realize there are already thirty-five thousand people watching the Futures Game before ours. I thought it was going to be half empty.

I am really crashing, all the energy from the speculation over the last twenty-four hours and especially at batting practice has evaporated and I feel finished, but suddenly they're telling me to go to the field. I do and immediately get another rush of adrenaline. I see the other team throwing balls and realize that I have yet to actually catch a softball in my glove. I grab Charlie for a game of catch. One hundred feet away, Panic at the Disco is doing a quick concert with pyrotechnics and I am sweating like a whore in church. Thankfully I'm sitting next to Charlie on the bench and we watch and learn as the other players are introduced—hat off, shake teammates' hands, get your place in line, wave to the crowd—until it's our turn. Fist-pumping and high-fiving my team on the way out makes me feel like a dude.

Game on and we get a couple runs right off the bat. I head to right field and, luckily, Charlie is in center. So we're outfield buddies too. I am teleported back to Little League, standing in the outfield praying the ball won't come to me. One does—well, more to Charlie, I barely even run for it and he doesn't get the play and I apologize if it was actually my play to get. He says it was his to get. When it's my turn to bat, I am halfway to the plate and realize I don't have my gloves on (so much
gear
!) and scramble to put them on. My at-bat music is the theme from
Real Housewives of Orange County
—sure to intimidate all in the field. January tries to trash-talk me (
did Betty Draper just call me a “pussy”!?)
and I take my first swing in a game since losing the game for us at the end of my humiliating six-year run in Little League thirty-five years ago.

It's a hit! A line drive actually! I am beaming! I am leading off first base and get called back by the announcer. The lady NBA star playing first has some fun with me. I have some fun back. (
It's all fun
, right?) Charlie bats after me and pops up. I think someone catches the ball, but screws up the throw to first and Charlie is still running, so I run too. Then they're all telling me to go back to the last base because he's out, but I think that's the third out so I'm kind of like a frozen idiot and get tagged out. And yet again
I wasn't paying attention
! Nelly ribs me but I am so grateful to have gotten a hit I am just excited. And at my next at bat I get another hit!
I'm two for two!
This time I don't screw up on the bases. Ozzie Smith gets me home. I am so elated about my two hits I feel like I could conquer the world. Even better, I'm subbed out of the outfield for the rest of the game. We kill the American League 15–4. Lots of high fives and fist pumps as fireworks blast over Target Field.

In the locker room people are taking showers, but I just put my clothes on and go home dirty. We shower at the hotel and head to the Nelly/MLB party at Epic, which is the whitest club on earth, literally Nelly and six hundred white people. They put us in an area with Matt Carpenter from the Cardinals, whose wife I met at
WWHL
. I ask who his best friend on the team is and he says Wainwright. I love that. My best friend on
my
team is Charlie, but I don't tell him. As we're leaving the Nelly show (early), there are eight cops out front and I ask them, “Officer, can you tell me where the strip club is?” They direct us to one a few blocks away on Washington, and as we're walking there we run into a guy with dreads who questions our choice of venue. He tells us we need to go to Rick's Cabaret downtown and so we get in a cab. We get to Rick's and almost immediately, as happens, a random stripper comes and sits down with us. She starts telling us about the night before, when a pro hockey player came into the champagne room and whipped out his dick and got kicked out. This after he asked for the menu for sexual favors—how much for hand job, blowjob, etc. She said that's off the menu. (They do serve food, by the way, and I am so hungry I almost order some, but who gets food at a strip club?) We ask her who the most crazy athletes are and she immediately says hockey players, because they're Russian and Canadian and drink insane amounts. A group of hockey players spent 40k on booze the night before. Later, she's going to a party at our hotel with some minor leaguers who played in the earlier game tonight and as she tells us I wonder how I can get into that party. She tells me she is from the South and travels to cities for big sporting events like the All-Star Game and NBA playoffs. She asks me to buy her a martini and I do. She tells me how much she loves Vicki Gunvalson as I stare at her face wondering if she is Right or Ratchet. I think she may be Ratchet.

On the way home we get a cabby who is unmarried (at sixty-five) and tells incredibly misogynistic jokes about women, kind of exactly what you'd expect from the guy that trolls outside the strip club at 2 a.m. But shocking, still. When I get home I realize I've been looking at my watch all night, which is on East Coast time so actually I should still be out. I don't care, though, because I feel like a hero
. I went two for two.

MONDAY, JULY 14, 2014—MINNEAPOLIS–NYC

I couldn't wait to get home to tell Surfin the big news. His face lit up. I could see the pride in his eyes. Em emailed and said that once again I had proven the whole family wrong. I also heard from Uncle Robert (I'm sending him my MLB softball glove), who was quite impressed, and Jim Edmonds loved the pic I sent him. (My arms are
cut
, it's undeniable!) Anderson is shocked at the sight of me in a baseball uniform, in a good way.

TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2014

Bethenny is indeed interested in coming back to
RHONY
. This is a bombshell for the show, so we are gonna see if we can make a deal. If it doesn't work out, we move on. On that note, I met with Bethenny, Martha Stewart, and Michael this morning about the show we're developing to pitch. It was fascinating to watch those two women together in a meeting. They're more similar than either probably would want to admit. Bethenny mentioned that people would be interested in the tension between them—which added an overlay of tension, or intensity, to the meeting itself. Martha pulled out her camera and started taking pictures of us all. Michael just returned from five weeks in Brazil doing
Men in Blazers
for the World Cup. He agrees that the service in Brazil leaves much to be desired and said, “It's as bad as the Soho House,” which is officially the funniest and most true thing I've heard all day.

Worked out with the Ninj and did
not
weigh myself. I am two for two, what the hell do I need with a scale?

We taped our fifth anniversary show early this evening and I had more fun than I've had on TV in a long time. The whole thing was a surprise orchestrated by the rest of the staff—all I knew was that Jeff Lewis would be there and that I just had to read what was in the teleprompter. I figured there would be doorbells ringing and people coming in throughout—and there were. I
love
a doorbell. The surprises were: Snoopy appearing as the bartender, wearing a Cardinals jersey, NeNe coming in the door (I was so happy to see her and touched she'd flown from LA just for this), Martha Stewart ringing the doorbell to steal NeNe's Andy Award, Jimmy accepting his Andy Award for Greatest Addition to the Clubhouse (the shotski), a taped message from SJ and James Wilkie and another from my parents (my dad said, “We can't believe the show is still going, frankly”) and one from Jackée accepting her award for Special Achievement in Clubhouse Drunkenness. And at the end Wacha came in with the Gay Shark and flipped out at the sight of Snoopy; it was so freaking cute. Dave, Liza, and Bruce came and I was thrilled they did.

The live show was Anderson and Kelly. I'd indulged myself by drinking Whispering Angel during the anniversary show even though I never drink before the live show, so I was feeling no pain. The three of us probably shouldn't be allowed to be on TV together anymore, for our own sakes, because we are now trying to shock each other by seeing how far we will go on air. Kelly asked Anderson if he's circumcised, I told Anderson his fly looked like it was down and he said it was because he was straining his zipper, and the poll question was a setup for me to be embarrassed: “Who do you want to see reveal a secret about me? Anderson or Kelly?” Anderson won and revealed that I am a top. So there was that.
And
Cher was our mystery caller and said that Anderson and I had sent her lovely pictures from Italy. Anderson said you have no idea how many we took in order to get just those, to which Cher responded that that was incredibly gay of us. The hot doctor from Southampton was at the show and we hung out after. He is nineteen years younger than me. Does that matter? I can't see how it doesn't. After the show Cher and I were texting back and forth. Now,
that
is a diva who loves an emoji. And I give them right back to her because I feel that's how she communicates.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 2014—NYC–LOS ANGELES

Surfin calls me Slugger now. I love it. Willie did a great piece on
Today
about
WWHL
—I mean like the best ever. Also all the other interviews I've been doing about the show hit this morning—
USA Today
, the
Post
, BuzzFeed,
Us
magazine, blah blah blah. Seeing all the articles together made me feel like we've achieved something. Before heading to LA for the
RHOOC
reunion, I pre-taped Liv Tyler and Common and, wow, are those two lovely people. We all exchanged emails after the show and Liv Instagrammed a picture of me and Common sitting across my desk from each other pretending to have a meeting. Best Friends Forever!

After an uneventful flight to LA, the people at the Tower put me in the penthouse and I tried to keep my voice down because Renée Zellweger was across the hall. Voices carry. Especially mine.

THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2014—LOS ANGELES

While I was reuniting the OC Hens the drama wasn't contained to the soundstage—during the breaks I kept turning on my phone to incoming hysterics coming at me from all cities. Teresa has a crisis manager who seems to bring on a fair amount of crisis herself. Plus two of the NY ladies are mad at me. The reunion was solid. We'll get two parts out of it. Tamra goes off the rails at the reunion. Heather was thoughtful and deliberate. Lizzie left crying. I felt horrible for her.

Afterwards I met Bruce and Bryan at Pump and chatted with Lisa for a bit. Great reaction to our anniversary show, especially Snoopy and Wacha together at last. Anderson's revelation that I'm a top is getting picked up on all the gay blogs. I can't even look at the comments.