FACT: Yankees star Derek Jeter is the most eligible bachelor in New York, and therefore the world.
Fact: He could have any girl he wanted.
Fact: He wants . . . Minka.
That would be Minka Kelly, a beautiful 29-year-old actress. Kelly and the Captain have been dating for more than a year, and rumors abound that the two are secretly engaged, while her friends are buzzing that, for Jeter, she’s “the real deal.”
If this information is a nasty shock to the legions of New York City ladies who have long thought of themselves as the perfect Mrs. Jeter, there are two reasons. First, both the ballplayer and his girl won’t talk about their personal lives and keep as low a profile as a couple can when one half is a superstar shortstop. (Neither participated in this article.)
The other reason is simple: No one knows who exactly Minka Kelly is.
True, she’s a star of a network TV show, but that show is the critically acclaimed “Friday Night Lights,” which means no one watches it. She did have a role in August’s indie charmer “(500) Days of Summer,” but the audience for indie charmers is even smaller than for critically acclaimed TV shows.
Indeed, Kelly’s success has a bit of discovered-at-the-soda-fountain quality to it.
An only child, Kelly was born in Los Angeles but grew up in New Mexico. Her father is guitarist Rick Dufay; her mother (who died in 2008) was Maureen Kelly, a Vegas showgirl. By all accounts her early relationship with her father was not ideal.
“I didn’t really grow up with my dad,” she told Askmen.com. “When my mom was pregnant with me, he was in Aerosmith and didn’t want to have anything to do with it . . . I was really mad at him for leaving.”
At 19, however, she moved to California “not to pursue acting but to get out of Albuquerque,” she told Men’s Health, and her dad offered her a place to stay. There, she started studying to become a surgical assistant, but eventually dropped the pursuit once she landed her career-making turn as the long-suffering Lyla Garrity on “Friday Night Lights” in 2006.
Since then, she’s been linked to a number of Hollywood bachelors, including John Mayer, Donald Faison, Chris Evans and her co-star on NBC Taylor Kitsch.
The romance with Jeter started in LA, an acquaintance of hers tells us. “One of Jeter’s advisers set them up. Jeter saw her at a restaurant in LA, he was having lunch with his agent, noticed her, and that’s how it started.” Apparently, Jeter kept sending her roses until she finally gave in.
Now, “they almost complete each other’s sentences,” one entertainment insider tells The Post. The source has seen both Kelly and Jeter with other partners in the past, and calls this the best match for both. (Of Kelly’s ex Mayer — who reportedly dumped her for Jennifer Aniston — the insider says: “Anyone’s better than John Mayer. He’s just bad news. He’s not a good guy.”)
Concern for who she’s dating is widespread among her close friends, including Zach Gilford, who plays quarterback Matt Saracen on “FNL.” He calls Kelly a good friend whom he likes to act goofy around and go see live music with in Austin, where the show films. He says he was cautious when he first learned from Kelly about Jeter.
“He’s one of the best baseball players in the world,” Gilford says, “and I was like, he better be a nice guy because she’s one of my best friends and I was very protective of her. When I finally got to meet him, I was like, ‘Oh, they’re perfect together.’ ”
What struck him was how in love the two appear. “[Jeter]’s just totally down- to-earth to the point where some people [from ‘Friday Night Lights’] were talking junk because they’re Dodgers fans, and he would just go with it. He didn’t care at all.”
Kelly is apparently just as down-to- earth: “There are celebrities who know how to play the game and do it really well, and Minka is not like that,” our insider tells us. “She doesn’t even read the tabloids anymore.”
Which means she probably missed the controversy reported by The Post last month about “visible coldness” between her and Kate Hudson, girlfriend to Alex Rodriguez, who sits with the Yankee wives and showily smooches A-Rod while Kelly sits alone in Jeter’s private seats. “I don’t know if it’s a personal thing, or just an extension of the ongoing A-Rod/Jeter rivalry,” a source told Page Six of Team Minka versus Team Kate.
If you’re on the Team Minka side, you’ll probably want to know what she told Men’s Health about her dream-man profile: “A man has to be passionate about something . . . And I think a career should be as important for him as it is for me. And that we should be able to understand that we come second.”
Well, she certainly found in Jeter someone who’s dedicated to his career.
In a 2007 LA Times interview about Kelly, “Friday Night Lights” creator and show-runner Peter Berg described her appeal: “Minka is very hard to characterize as being sweet and wholesome or sultry and mildly diabolical. You feel like she can be your friend, but you also feel if you’re not really careful, there’s the tiny, teeny, little chance that she’ll walk off with your boyfriend.”
If there’s one thing everyone agrees upon, however, it’s that Jeter and Kelly appear to be head-over-heels for each other. “She’s really happy,” says the insider. “Just because she’s not all in the media doesn’t mean she’s being obnoxious or mean. She’s just trying to be happy with the man that she seems to want to spend the rest of her life with.”
Additional reporting by Don Kaplan
Waddya think Minka?
By CALLA SALINGER
NEW York is obsessed with Jeter. We asked fans what they think of his lady. Remember, Minka, they’ve only just met you!
“I’d rather he married me!” – Colleen Dummuyer, 25, Manhattan
“I love the Yankees. I wish them luck, I think she’s beautiful.” – Francesca McElrath, 23, Manhattan
“I had no idea he was dating anybody. I hope it works out; it’s hard in the spotlight.” – Jodi Bailey, 31, Manhattan
“He could do better. I’m not going to lie.” – Alexis Jamieson, 24, Manhattan