For as long as many of us have been alive, Danny Leadbetter has been sitting on a crate outside the deli on the corner of 13th Street and University Place.

“I been here for over 20 years,” he states matter-of-factly, as if describing a relationship with an old friend.

And if it’s raining?

“I’m right here.”

The snowstorm last week?

“Right here.”

He is neither confrontational nor demanding. Ear buds in, he bobs his head silently to the tune of a small pocket radio until greeted or given some change. All of a sudden, he becomes Mr. Personality, a warm, smooth-talking charmer, quick to flash a smile and express his thanks.

Danny likes to smile and he smiles often — a full, wide-mouthed beam that stretches his face and flaunts his absent teeth. His easy, open personality has made him more than a few friends in the area.

As if on cue, a young man walking by stops to say hello. “This here’s my boy,” Danny says, visibly happy to see him. The two slap and pound each other’s hands in a special handshake, and it’s clear that they are friends. Before the man leaves, Danny teases, “You got something for me?” The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. Danny smiles sheepishly and accepts it — obviously not the first time he’s bummed a smoke.

“I got a lot of friends, people that work here, people that live here,” he boasts. “I know everybody in the neighborhood.”

But before he settled into this one New York City intersection, Danny had a family and a career, a life filled with challenges but also lots of joy. For a long time, it did not seem like a path headed for the streets.

Splitting his childhood between Charlotte, N.C., and Jersey City, N.J., Danny enrolled in Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte after graduating high school. After a year, he was approached by the Charlotte Knights (then called the Charlotte Orioles), a farm team for the Baltimore Orioles. Presented with an opportunity that many of us only dream about, Danny dropped out of school and signed with the team, becoming a semi-professional baseball player.

“Traveling all around the country playing ball,” he recalls. “Man, that was the best.”

But his fondest memories from the past were not his days as an athlete — it was time spent with his wife. When asked about how they met, Danny’s face lights up in another irrepressible smile, the biggest one yet. “Oh boy, now that’s a good one,” he chuckles as he begins to set the scene.

He was 18, it was a perfect evening in the fall, and he was walking down Wayne Street — no wait. He had left Wayne Street, walking down Montgomery, and there she was. The two had met before through some mutual friends and he called out, “Where you going Constance?” She was on her way home but Danny turned on the charm and convinced her to come down to the boys and girls club with him instead. “We hit it off from there.”

Danny continues to reminisce, describing their days as a young couple, playing pool, ping pong and cards at the club, and the afternoon when he sang to her in front of all their friends. He proposed a year later and they had their daughter, Nina, six months after that.

“After I left the Orioles, we settled in Jersey City, and then in 1992, after 47 years of marriage, my wife passed away.” Danny says he is 61 years old and that he married his wife when he was 19.

“After she passed, I took it really hard,” he admits. He describes losing his job as a medical assistant and moving — no, coming he corrects himself — to this street corner. “I just had to try to find myself.” He doesn’t say anymore on the subject.

Today, Danny enjoys a good relationship with his daughter, who has her own family in Jersey City. He visits her once or twice a week, but never stays for more than a night. “She’s always asking me why I gotta leave again and why I don’t stay longer,” he confesses. “But I can’t do that, man. She’s got her own people to take care of, I don’t wanna bother her.”

It’s the first warm day of the spring and Danny lifts his head to look at the sunny sky. “Just sitting here, passing the time, staying out of trouble, it’s not so bad.” He smiles again. “You gotta have a happy, happy soul or you got nothing.”

In a city moving at a mile a minute, amid speeding cars and rushing pedestrians, Danny sits unfettered on his green, plastic crate. He’s worn many hats in his life — sports star, romantic, father, beggar — but underneath it all, Danny Leadbetter is just a regular guy taking it one day at a time.

Daniel Huang is a contributing writer. Email him at [email protected].