Tales of a MLB bat boy: part 1
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Tales of a MLB bat boy: part 1
Well I guess first off I'll just start with what a typical day/night for me was back then.
I would normally arrive 2 hours before the game (unless the president of the country was there that day, that story will come in a later installment). After arriving and putting on my uniform (minus jersey) I would begin preparing all the dugout stuff which included gatorade, water, different kinds of seeds, towels etc. I should tell you the team has/had a room dedicated to seeds, candy, and chewing tobacco. After that was ready I would head out to the field and wait for BP to be over and put away the pine tar, fungo bats, and any other bats players left on the field.
Usually after that I had some down time unless a player needed me to go to their car, or get an autograph from an opposing player. Ahhh I almost forgot, some of you O's fans should remember Elrod Hendricks who was the bullpen coach for so many years. Well he had someone who brought him a rum cake just about every home game. Just before the game I would trot out to centerfield and grab the cake from him and take it back to the clubhouse. After that it was gametime. I'm sure everyone knows what a batboy does during the game so I'll omit that for now.
After the game I cleaned cleats, messed around in the clubhouse waiting for laundry to be done. Oh another little tidbit, every piece of players clothing had there number written on it with marker, including socks and yes jockstraps. We would go through the laundry and put it in its corresponding locker. I also had to clean up the indoor batting cages which was basically just picking up the balls and putting them in baskets. Another lesser know task was restocking the two huge refrigerators with beverages which included soda, gatorade, and beer. After all this it would usually be anywhere between 2-3 hours after the game. So it's a pretty long day but well worth it.
In my next installment I'll tell you about some of the odder things I was asked to do and a joke some relief pitchers played on me on my first day.Tags: NoneYou must be logged in to post a comment.
I used to work at Shea Stadium and have many tales of my own...One of them actually has a question that you might be able to answer in it:
I once saw a young Braden Looper (while with the Marlins) trip and fall while carrying about 12 cups of coffee (stacked in 2 columns). He was on his way back to the bullpen (Shea was NOT very efficient for players, less so for opposing ones). He went down HARD and the coffee was EVERYWHERE. He stood up and his grey uniform was now completely tan/brown. Now onto the question:
I dont recall exactly when in the game this happened, but it had to be relatively early (I was never in the tunnels after the 5th inning or so). Anyway, he later makes an appearance and has an obviously clean uniform on. How do you think they handled that? Do they have extra Uni's ready to go? Do you think the clubhouse manager had to sew letters and numbers on a blank Jersey? Again, it should be noted that this was an AWAY game for his team.. Does that change how it would be handled?
Also, how often you plan on writing these?