Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — You wouldn’t know it to look at them, but many of the bat boys working the Dodgers’ games at Chavez Ravine are older than most of the players. Okay, not Albert Pujols. But other than that…
In today’s LA Times, Assistant Sports Editor Steve Henson has written a profile of the Dodgers’ clubhouse crew, including the on-field personnel that fans lovingly know as “bat boys”. Turns out, many of them might have started out the job as “boys”, but their boyhoods are firmly in the rearview mirror.
“I think at first fans see a bat boy and assume it’s a younger kid,” said 25-year-old Branden Vandal, who is quoted in the Times article. And, at 5-feet-6 and 140 pounds, Vandal could easily be mistaken for a teenager. “But,” Vandal continued, “all these guys are young men or older, even in their 30s. We do it because we enjoy what we do.”
The article goes on to discuss the day-to-day existence of the bat boys, ball girls, and “clubbies” who work for the Dodgers. Some of them are in their second decade of working for the team, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
The longest-tenured is Jerry Turner, hired as a Dodgers bat boy in 1979 and the visitor’s clubbie for 25 years. He now serves as the umpires’ locker room manager.
Dodgers clubhouse manager Alex Torres, 42, started as a bat boy in September 1996, landing the job because his next-door neighbor was a bat boy and the team needed an extra hand during the stretch run. Now the bat boys and clubbies report to him and assistant manager Jose “Peps” Castillo, who like Vandal has a B.A. — in criminal justice from Cal State L.A.
“I haven’t had to interview anyone new,” Torres said. “Branden is the only hire I’ve made. It says a lot about the kind of people and workers they are to be together this long. I’m blessed.”
It’s a good read and an interesting look at a part of the games that fans take for granted, but know little about. And as for the young men like Branden Vandal who dutifully serve the on-field needs of the Dodgers’ players, it’s the best job in town.
“It’s a great gig to be this close to big league baseball every day,” he concludes with a smile.
