IT’S NOT GONE, JETER
Stadium-art problem
This was a curveball Derek Jeter didn’t see coming.
The Manhattan artist behind a gaudy home-run sculpture at Marlins Park is refusing to move the massive $2.5 million piece from center field, thwarting the ex-Yankee captain’s plans to revamp the Miami ballpark.
“I want it to stay,” Red Grooms, 80, told The Post Wednesday from his Tribeca apartment. “I want it to stay and keep being beaned by baseballs.”
The seven-story sculpture named “Homer”— which features water, diving marlins and dancing flamingos that animate every time there’s a home run — was built as part of the Marlins’ 2009 deal for nearly $400 million in public funding for the new park.
Officials for Miami-Dade County, which owns the sculpture, said in order to move it, permission is required from Grooms, who could ultimately decide to disavow the pricey piece and bankrupt its value.
“Jeter doesn’t even like it. Can you believe that?” Grooms scoffed. “I never thought I’d be in a tussle with Derek Jeter.”
Neither Jeter nor his partners, who purchased the Marlins last year for $1.2 billion, have publicly admitted they want the kitschy sculpture banished from the park.
But after a meeting with the new Marlins owners last month, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez told reporters they weren’t “all that crazy about it,” according to MLB.com.
Jeter also was diplomatically mum last week on the future of “Homer.”
“It’s big. I mean, it’s unique. It’s a unique sculpture,” the former Bombers shortstop said. “We’re having a dialogue. We’re trying to figure out any ways we can make this in-game experience better for fans.”
County officials are now floating the idea of moving “Homer” to a nearby art museum or another ballpark — but only with Grooms’ blessing.
“Our working assumption is we want the artist’s endorsement. The way to get that is to convince [him we can] be both respectful of the artwork and respectful of the artist,” Michael Spring, the county’s cultural-affairs director, told The Miami Herald.
But Grooms said “Homer” should stay put because it was designed and built specifically for Marlins Park.
“If you’ve got that outside somewhere . . . have it anyplace else, it’s not going to work,” Grooms said. “It’s simple. I’d like [it] to stay there. That’s the bottom line.”