Red Sox III

• Red Sox: 3
• Nationals: 9
• Sold: 15 cases of beer, 17 nut/Crackerjack, 28 water

Finally, the breakthrough game. Not for the Nationals, who won big, but for my sales. Got there early, rolled through four pre-game cases, and kept moving it through a fairly long seven innings. Predictions by one vendor that the visiting Bostonians might have tapped their travel budgets, resulting in down sales, proved untrue. It was Thursday, the weather continued to hold nicely, and a third straight stadium attendance record was set. I've never sold so much beer at a baseball game: 15 cases, providing almost all of my $445 in commissions, and with the tips I was up close to $700 territory. Quite nice for three-and-a-half hours of work; the best hourly rate you can get short of degreed professional work, or swindling. And as much fun as you can have standing up.

"Is it always like this?" asked one Bostonian as I furiously popped the tops off a series of bottles.

Not at all, I said. You should be here for the Cincinnati games, when it takes me all night to sell what I just unloaded in the past 20 minutes. And those twenty minutes went on over and over again, dropping two cases of Bud Light on one row, heading back to the support room for another 48, handing those out (and moving so aggressively my fingers were scraped and bloodied on the bottles sharp crimping) , collecting bonus money for it, and doing it over and over again, apron pockets fattening as the night moves on.

This is what I'd been hoping for during those dull slow vends of April and May, when I felt like more an intrusion on the sightlines than someone doing anyone any good. The constant motion and compressed sense of time is the fun part. "Here, take this, you're working hard!" is something I'll hear once in a while when getting a hefty tip. But it's the easiest back-breaking labor I've ever done, when time is a factor and fingers are raised to order the next row up, and the next row after that, until I can't even get to them at all before running dry. How can it be work when it's this much fun? Sometimes I can hardly believe I get paid to work at the ballpark.

Beerman Neal was so excited he called me up after midnight to compare notes. "Tonight felt like RFK!"

And it did feel like those three years when the team was new in old RFK stadium, especially the first year, when those home games would draw audiences that were thrumming with excitement about being there, at seeing something new! The team brought in long-suffering baseball afficianados who'd tired of the drive to Baltimore, and the novelty lured curiosity hounds intrigued by the hype of the new team. The numbers were bigger -- I remember hitting 13 cases of beer on only the third time I'd ever vended, and an average Tuesday night was 8 cases -- but it was also the newness of it all. And the newness of suddenly finding a bucket of brew in my hands, and feeling as if was attending the biggest party in town, seven nights a week when the team was there. And coming home so wired I couldn't get to sleep for hours and staying awake into the balmy nights.

The past three games were like that, and they're what I'd hoped the new stadium would be. I'd heard the Baltimore vendors talk about five straight years of Camden Yard sellouts: every night was another dozen cases and a wad of cash in hand, and that endless happy sweaty labor. But that began to draw down a dozen years ago, when Camden's novelty started to fade and the team started a streak of 12 straight seasons of losing that has yet to end.

But Nationals Park's sellout streak lasted exactly one game -- the game after last season's opener was cold and half-full -- and it became clear very quickly that this was no Camden. Nationals Park has seemed on almost every game night like a reception occupying twice too large a banquet hall, and suffered for the empty remaining space, with conversation made difficult from all the echoing. Parties gain energy from bumping elbows, when we're crammed in all at one point. Baseball games too.

And the sad part is, even as I was in the middle of it tonight, I could see it ending. We won't have a Nationals game like that again this year. They'll be back on Friday, July 3rd against Atlanta, an Independence day weekend which will be pretty good (but which I'll miss altogether for vending, to be at a family event), but after that it will be back to sparse crowds and three loads of beer during the weeknights. Down from the cloud.
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Red Sox, part II

• Red Sox: 6
• Nationals: 4
• Sold: 11 cases of beer/25 peanut, Crackerjack

I'm sort of at a loss for who to root for here, honestly. I'm a homer by nature, always rooting for my town's team, and in principle as a beerman for the home team. Better for sales that way -- keep the majority of the people in the seats happy, and they throw money that much faster. But the talk about this series' attendance is true: the place has outdone itself every game in packing more people in than ever, and this is shaping up to be, in effect, a home series for the Sox. My best off-the-cuff guess is that at least two thirds of the people here are rooting for the 'visitors,' maybe three-quarters of them. So the latest Nationals loss came as another boon to the beer sales.**

I've gotten better at just about ignoring all that, and just moving that beer around, all the way up to 11 cases of it tonight. Just about the same as last night, but on a night that was far slower for everyone else. Showing up early and staying downstairs helped out plenty.

**Another reason to root against the Nubs was the asshole I had to deal with tonight. Brushed him with a Crackerjack bag, then immediately apologized with "Sorry, tight quarters here" and he looks me dead in the eye and says, "I don't give a shit if it is. I paid for this seat." Really pulling a domination thing. We went back and forth, with me protesting that it had been an accident, and him telling me I'm shitty at my job, and so forth, until he'd dragged the worst out of me and I'm telling him he's a boorish jerk and semi-intentionally dropping a bottlecap on his shoulder while serving behind him, to which he retaliated by tossing his apple core into my bucket. Really great self-control on both our parts. The woman behind him noted what a dickhead he was being, and said he'd told her son to "Shut the fuck up." I looked at the kid and he was about 12 years old, and wearing a kelly green Sox jersey. The dipshit guy was wearing a Nationals cap, and was apparently levying his loser's frustration on the kid. The worst person in a packed stadium, and he has to be rooting for my team.

The impulse is to clock the guy, especially when I'm caffeinated and hopped up on the energy of the crowd, but as a career move it leaves plenty to be desired. There's that old advice to the stage-frightened: imagine the audience in their underwear and you'll be fine. The Beerman's adaptation: when dealing with a prick like that, imagine dumping your bucket of icewater on his head. Then don't do it, and run off and serve everyone else.

Red Sox

• Red Sox: 11
• Nationals: 3
• Sold: 11 cases of beer/25 peanut, Crackerjack

Finally, a breakout game at Nationals Park. We've had games like this exactly twice since they moved into the new place, both of them the home openers, and the only reason this one was big had nothing to do with the home team, and everything to do with the team they were playing: Boston. Since Boston started becoming really competitive during this decade, they've become the number one team in MLB for away attendance, and we got the benefit of it. Weather was perfect, and I've never served a crowd so ready to drink on a Tuesday night. Between commission and tips, I cracked the 500 dollar mark. And I showed up only at game time, missing out on healthy sales during the six o'clock hour, and wasn't even close to the high sellers in my room. With an energetic crowd and constant sales and a vendor's sense of purpose, it felt like it did back in the days of crappy old RFK.

It's gotta be said that Red Sox fans [Note: photo not mine, stolen from article detailing "Rodent Feces in Red Sox Stadium Food"] have become boorish and smug since the turnaround, though. There was the 8th-grade girl from the school group from Boston earlier this season, who gestured in a rather superior manner to the empty seats on a weeknight and said, "Is it always like this?" In her short life, she's never really known rooting for a bad team that rewards devotion with losses. As in a lot of cases, it was endearing to see loyalty endure failure; less so when it bellows at perpetual success.

In the later innings, in the lower deck's first base side, there was That Guy: the one who's gotta stand up, beer in hand, covered in all the licensed gear, and make a display of his rooting for the guest team. The guy who's sense of primacy is transferred directly from his team winning on the field (plenty could be said of sports fan-dom as a form of modern tribalism, but I'll leave that be for the moment). The guy then turned his attentions to me, for dropping a bag of nuts during the juggling routine.

"Ya dropped it! Yer breaking all the shells when ya do that!"

He might have been right, but I had a point to make. I addressed the crowd.

"You know what Red Sox fans have been resembling more and more in recent years?" I asked. Pause.

"Yankees fans!"

A disapproving ripple passed through the seats, amused but in denial. But there was one guy -- sporting a green Boston 'B' cap -- who silently nodded in acknowledgement. To his credit, a realist.

True Doubleheader

• Giants: 5 / 4
• Nationals: 1 / 1
• Sold: 89 beers, 81 peanuts/Crackerjack

Once again, as in the night Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's home run record against them, the Nationals found themselves on the wrong end of history. After last night's rain delay, Randy Johnson was still trying to get his 300th win, and to best avoid the rains that lingered on through the day the game was scheduled for 4:35 in the afternoon. This made for a modern-day rarity: the true doubleheader. Not a 1:00/7:00 doubleheader that's become common (in the interest of booting everyone out before charging them to come in again for the second game), but a game that had not much more than a half hour between final out of game one and first pitch of game two.

Plenty of people -- probably all of them -- were there to see Randy Johnson win. And the game was the focus of the day's attention, as most everyone filtered out when it was over, the 300th recorded (thank heaven for the base-10 system to get people excited by a number ending in zero). What I felt was that, in being the real focus of attention, the game was a throwback: not a marketing opportunity, not a place to park a busload of schoolkids on field trip, not a chance for tourists to check out the stadium, not a novel place for people to party or to entertain clients. The roiling weather had kept out the riff-raff (a good steady source of my money, let's be honest), drawn the baseball nuts, and the game had taken precedence. I'm not sure when was the last time I felt that the stadium existed to show people games rather than to provide a platform for cross-promotional branding, and the irritatingly gleeful Nat Pack and their limp-armed T-shirt tosses, and the Geico lizard running the outfield with the big-headed Racing Presidents.

As a True, back-to-back Doubleheader, an odd and non-sensical rule was imposed on beer vendors: cutoff for game one would be at the end of the 7th as usual, then sales would resume the moment that first game was over. For two innings only, sales would be cut off in the interest of alcohol control. Not enough time for anyone to really sober up if they had to, but since no one was really drinking it didn't matter anyway.

Rain Delay

• Giants: X
• Nats: X
• Sold: 24 beers, 19 peanuts/Crackerjack

The rain came in one wave before gametime, then cleared, and I thought it was over. But one of my customers -- claiming to be "a mariner from Seattle" and "a tugboat captain" looked up at the sky and told me we weren't having a game today. It turns out he was right, but he should have told it to the Nationals, who kept postponing until the game until 10:45, after waves of rain fell on the stadium again.

In the meantime, fifteen red-shirted members of the field crew pulled the tarp and pushed at the standing water with rollered squeegees, then pulled the tarp back again, to the disappointment of a wet crowd huddled on the concourse. At 9:33 a thunderclap hit without warning from a stone's throw away, triggering my reflexes into a jump out of my shoes. "Scared ya, didn't it?" asked a guy in the seats who'd seen my leap.

I covered all corners of the park, and all levels in a near-futile effort to sell just a case. I found a group of giggly girls who made a lot of lesbian references -- declaring to be in love with Megan Fox, etc. -- which I took to be just talk, until one of them showed me her lower-lip tattoo. I also sold some peanuts to kids in the stands, at one point testing a kid in a wife-beater to see how many I could balance on his head. I got four perched up there before they slipped off.

It seems the Nationals are snakebit; team is rotten and attendance not any better, so the main draw comes from seeing the opposition. This was a bright spot on the schedule, since most people were here to see Randy Johnson go for a 300th win, and then the rain came, and came again. The only on-field action anyone saw was when a guy ran down the empty rows, hopped from the seats onto the field, and did a soggy prance through the outfield as security closed in from all corners. He ran over the white tarp, rounded what would have been third and headed for home, sliding into a guard at the plate as a baseball-starved crowd cheered. He'll probably be arrested, but I swear he was safe.

Shorn, Rested, Ready

• Giants: 6
• Nats: 10
• Sold: 78 beers, 41 peanuts/crackerjack

It's amazing what a little rest can do. After 18 straight days of vending, including an all day Preakness and two Baltimore-Philly double headers, I've had two days of rest in the past three. I caught up on some sleep, some daytime lounging rest, plenty of rich food, and a trim that took off half my hair. It was all enough to send me flying up and down the steps light as a feather. Still the usual lightly attended Nats game I expected on a Tuesday night, but I hit it with plenty of fuel to spare, instead of huffing and lurching around all drawn and hollow-eyed and spectral.

During 8th-inning checkout the vending manager made an unexpected proposition. "Do you want to be in a movie?"

Movie?

"They're going to be filming a movie at the stadium; Owen Wilson plays a pitcher, and Reese Witherspoon's in it. Filming June 12th and 13th -- I think it pays about 250 a day. They needed vendors as extras selling peanuts, Crackerjack, sodas, hot dogs."

No beer?

"No beer. They just wanted to keep it no alcohol. So I thought of you because of the peanuts and that stuff."

Sure, I said. I think I could juggle a few to add something to the scene.

I tentatively signed on, knowing that those dates -- Friday and Saturday -- are the same nights as Boston's first two games in Philly. A rock-solid moneymaker. But how often does something like this come along?

IMDB doesn't have much on the movie yet; it still has it as "Untitled James L. Brooks Project." A little searching reveals that Witherspoon plays a softball player caught between love interests Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson. Reuters even says that Jack Nicholson is trying to get into the movie.

According to other online gossip, the movie is called How Do You Know? and Wilson plays a reliever for the Washington Nationals, which I take to be a borrow from the Jerry Maguire playbook: they had to pick a major league team for a central character to play on, but they couldn't pick a team that people were actually aware of, else it seem too unreal. Enough people know who are actually on the Sox and Yankees and Dodgers teams, that to throw Wilson into the mix would be disorienting and unreal. But who knows anything about the Nationals, apart from the baseball diehards, the 12,000 people that apparently tune in to Washington's games on MASN? Wilson's Nationals will function, I'm guessing, as Cuba Gooding, Jr's Arizona Cardinals did in Jerry Maguire; a sort of in-joke for those who know how bad the team is. And making him a reliever (the worst part of the worst team in baseball) makes it richer. Almost gilding the lily, if D.C. locals are going to get defensive about it.

But let's think positive. If the Maguire model holds -- a 1996 movie featuring a bad team that only made it to the Superbowl 13 years later, in 2009 -- then, assuming How Do You Know? is released next year, it should be 2023 before the Nationals make it to the World Series. Dare to dream, Nats.

Green Hats

• Florida: 6
• Phillies: 2
• Sold: 144 beers/42 water

The Phillies know how to do a promotion. When they hand out a freebie at the gate, it isn't to the first 10,000 or the first 20,000 to show up, it's everyone. Tonight was "Irish Heritage Night," so everyone got a free green "Phillies Shamrock Cap" with a little four-leaf clover on the bill and a Phillies "P" front and center. On the back: "ProAir HFA/(albuterol sulfate)/Inhalation Aerosol." Which cap everyone, Irish or not, dutifully wore as if it were a late May St. Patrick's day. This handout was part of "Teva Respiratory Asthma Awareness Night," which didn't seem to generate as much buzz or appreciation, and no one handed out free sandals as part of the promotion. But "Teva" in this case appears to refer to "Teva Specialty Pharmeceuticals," a subsidiary of a Pennsylvania-based generics manufacturer, not the maker of neo-hippie footwear. Even without the supposed shoemaker's involvement, it was a strange mix of promotional partners: a pharma company pushing an asthma inhaler via free cap on Irish heritage night. Are the Irish more prone to respiratory problems than anybody else?

Vendors are strictly forbidden from swiping any swag during these promotions, but I got mine when a saucy warhorse of a woman tried to buy a beer off of me for four dollars. "See?" she said, clutcing four singles and the cap in her hand. "It's all I have."

Throw in that hat and you've got a deal, I said.

And the deal was struck. I plan on making it part of my Phillies uniform from now on, though I'm still keeping my standard-issue Citizens Bank Park cap on hand as a backup, just in case I get scolded for breaking protocol.
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Four Steps to Proper Lifting

• Marlins -----5
• Phillies -----3
• Sold -------- 5 cases beer

My Philadelphia employer, Aramark, helpfully posted the following instructional flier:


Note how this focused laborer carefully regards his assigned parcel, as if considering the mysterious contents of the Ark of the Covenant! Then, following with impeccable form and careful grip, raising the fragile box to waist-height, maintaining the object's line ever-close to the body, employing the larger gluteal and femoral muscles with effortless grace. Such balance, such poetry, when man and implement become one! A performance worthy of the great Vasiliy Alexeev, surely.

Much of this has nothing to do with the vendors. I "size up the load" by shouting "Two cases!" handing over $324 to Karen the cashier, grabbing the tub, and popping it up on my shoulder as I race out the door, trying not to hit anyone on the way out, or slip on the beer-and-ice sludge that has formed outside the door. Maybe things are different in Washington state, whose Department of Labor & Industries produces this how-to guide. I would very much like to get my hands on that guy's puffy chef's hat, though.
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Battle of the Beltways?

• Orioles: 4
• Nationals: 2
• Sold: 4 cases of beer/40 peanut, Crackerjack

The crowd arrived late, the beer was lukewarm, and the overall atmosphere a disappointment. I'd actually been hoping that this would be a real runaround, packed house affair, but I should have known better. Only the Red Sox will be filling D.C.'s park this year.

Instead the seats were still pretty empty by the time the game started, huge swaths of exposed blue plastic left waiting for asses to fill them. D.C. has always been a late-arriving crowd, particularly on Friday nights. I like to think it's everyone still chained to the desk, busy worker bees trying to clear it for the weekend, but I think it might just be traffic.

It took until about the third or fourth inning for the place to fill out a bit, and then when it did, the O's people came, bringing orange to the blue stadium, and watching their team win. In the upper deck, there was the usual dummy up there, that one guy from the visiting team who had to stand up and address the crowd screaming, "Orioles! O's rule!"

Which is pretty ridiculous, since they're in last place in their division. They rule nothing, and neither do the Nationals; the Nats are the worst team in baseball. So there was nothing for anyone there to really gloat about.

My response: "My terrible team is better than your terrible team!"

But I might have been wrong on that one. O's win, Nats stay bad, and a listless crowd shuffles out at the end of the latest installment of a pretty subdued rivalry.

'Peanut Dude' Dead

-- Pirates: 4
-- Nationals: 5
-- Sold: 72 beer, 69 peanut/Crackerjack

Not very often a ballpark vendor makes national news, but it happened today: Arnie "Peanut Dude" Murphy died. Known for the accuracy of his long-distance tosses around the seats at Houston's Minute Maid Park, he was clocked at 42-mph on a peanut toss, was a six-time Aramark All-Star Vendor and was named "Best Ballpark Vendor" by the Houston Press. I'd never heard of the man before (and I disagree with the assertion that he "may be the most famous peanut vendor in America" -- that honor goes to the Dodgers' Roger Owen) but he was apparently institution enough to be memorialized by National Public Radio's All Things Considered.
So in my mind, I dedicated tonight's vend to the Peanut Dude, buy selling as many bags of peanuts and Crackerjack as I could. Plenty of kids' groups on Family Night added up to three loads sold, on top of the beer, tossing those bags deep into the sections -- drawing attention from the rest of the group and stoking sales -- though with perhaps less accuracy than earned the Peanut Dude his fame.
** Note: Photo stolen from Flickr, which noted that it was in turn stolen from a book called Working at the Ballpark. Ain't free content great?

Portables

• Pirates: 8
• Nationals: 5
• Sold: 102 beers / 47 peanut, Crackerjack

So right after the worst sales day of the season, comes one of the better ones. Still a sparse crowd playing a small-market Pirates, but sales were up. The reason was limited competition -- the Portables were closed.

The problem with Nationals Park is that what's good for the team's overall business isn't necessarily good for the Beerman's business. Old stadiums follow an old model of design, where the concessions stands are wedged below the stands, requiring a trip into the dark tunnel and into a dungeonous hallway to load up on beer and food. Since this takes you away from the game, the beerman performs a welcome service. At newer stadiums like Nationals Park, though, the lower bowl is laid out below a wraparound concourse that offers unbroken connection with the game. At the top of the row is the Beerman's competition: the Portable Beer Unit. Just head to the top of the row, and there it stands in molded plastic upon casters, capable of chilling hundreds of bottles of brew at a time while offering gracious views of the field. There's no reason to rely on the vendor when the portable is there, so it's a good night when they're closed and the vendor can pick up those sales.

People always ask me if I'm excited about the New Stadium, and if the New Stadium lived up to my expectations, and isn't the New Stadium just beautiful? Well, not anymore, not really, and not at all. I'll get into my aesthetic judgments later, but when the layout of the place itself cuts into my sales and minimizes my reason for being there at all, that creates an ugly situation.

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Neutron Bomb

• Pirates: 12
• Nationals: 7
• Sold: 24 beers, 17 peanuts/Crackerjack

This is what the ballpark looked like, attendance-wise, during the middle of the third inning on a fine weather night:
It's a late-arriving crowd, no doubt, but there's no traffic excuse on Monday night and this was as good as it got. The lower seats were overfull with vendors, so I beat a retreat to the high reaches where this shot was taken, and it didn't get much better, and I ended up doing something I rarely ever do: I gave up for three full innings and watched the game while chatting with another vendor from the upper concourse.

Just bitching, basically, about the slapdash appearance of the ballpark, the abundance of vendors for the small crowds, and the penny-pinching rapacity of the Lerner ownership.

"This place was a big money-grab," said Glenn. "From the high-priced beer, to the ridiculous rates to enter the President's Club, and plenty else. And people got turned off to it; that's why season tickets are down 25% this year, and you can see the result." He motioned to the empty grandstand.

"Here's what to consider: this team isn't as bad as they seem. They're actually a couple of years from being pretty good. But what's gonna happen when they are good, and still no-one shows up?"

That's enough to chill the vendor's heart.

Tip Differential

• Phillies: 10
• Nationals: 6
• Sold: 156 beer, 38 peanut/Crackerjack

Back at Nationals Park from Philadelphia, it was as expected: a smaller crowd, late arriving, plenty of visiting Philadelphians, and lower beer sales than two and a half hours up 95. What I'd forgotten was exactly how good the tips are in D.C. Just last night in Philly, the numbers worked out this way:

Philly: 10.5 cases of beer sold / 122.75 = $11.70 tips per case
D.C.: 6.5 cases of beer sold / 135.25 = $20.80 tips per case

And these numbers skewed inward: Philadelphia's tips sometimes average out to less than $10 a case, and D.C.'s sometimes get as high as $23 a case. Maybe it's D.C.'s wealth (and to be fair, some of it is the extra nuts and Jack that adds to the tip rate), or Philly's working class fan base,*** but Washingtonians say "keep the silver" before reconsidering and handing over an extra dollar to top it off, while in Philly their hands are out without prompting, ready to receive full change -- and that stray quarter -- off a $6.75 beer. It's more fun to get in the flow by really moving product in volume, but I gotta remember that the pay difference between the two isn't as great as it seems when the relative cheapness of Philadelphians is considered.

*** Also baffling geographically, when thrifty Philadelphia is to be found wedged between tip-thick DC/Baltimore and New York City, a real tipping town.

Solid Outing

• Dodgers: 5
• Phillies: 3
• Sold: 252 beer, 6 soda

Yesterday's game was a downer because I didn't make the most of it. Again, I spent too much time downstairs -- the whole game -- leaving Beerman Joe to serve Coors to the right upper deck by himself. The result was sad: I usually outsell Joe by a case, but I lost to him last night by two full cases. I went to bed kicking myself.

And woke up still pissed about it. But I made a comeback during this 1:35 pm game. I left the lower deck behind after the first, then ran around like a headless chicken with double-loads the rest of the day, hitting the 300s right by the room, going long down to the end of the 400s usually last to be served by roaming vendors, then picking a 200 level section at random to test the waters there, and dumping a case in about 5 minutes flat. By the end I'd passed out over 10 cases, a best for me this year. The result, by the time the time wound down and the last pitch of the 7th ended up in the catcher's glove: I'd beaten Joe by two and a half cases. I was redeemed, and had finally shucked off bad habits, and all was right with the world.

Falling Behind

• Dodgers: 9
• Phillies: 2
• Sold: 168 beers, 6 sodas

When attendance figures are checked, it turns out there aren't many teams that can fill a stadium on a Wednesday night. The Phillies can. 43,000+ filed into a stadium, and selling started strong, better than last night. A home-team homerun helped the mood as long as the score was 1-0.

Then the mood of the crowd settled somewhat, and declined, and the sales slowed to a trickle. It wasn't until I checked the score that I understood: Dodgers winning 7-1. This blog isn't supposed to be about the game, but the game can affect the vend, and Phillies' audience is particularly sensitive to the team's fortunes. When they're up the money's flying, when they're down, they fold arms and get pissy, and the money stays right in the pocket. I lugged around two cases for over two innings -- last call included -- and had to return five beers to the freezer. A letdown.

Dollar Dog Night

• Dodgers: 3
  
• Phillies: 5
  
• Sold: 144 beer, 6 soda

Most Mondays in Philly is designated "Dollar Dog Night," when a hot dog that normally would set you back $4.50 is only a buck. There are a couple things this leads to:

1. Overconsumption. People who would be perfectly satisfied with a couple of dogs for them and the wife tote around trays with five and six dogs. There's not much savings, but they feel like they're getting a value because they're gorging on three times as many weiners for the same price.
2. A younger crowd shows up, drawn by the value. Dollar Dog Night essentially becomes a College Night like the one in Baltimore.
   
3. Because of the younger crowd, in-seat beer sales are disallowed, all the vendors assigned to work out of the upstairs commissaries are moved downstairs. Sales end up being down for each vendor because we're all packed into the lower bowl, and I end up selling aluminum bottles of Bud Light instead of Coors.

At the end of it, I managed six cases, and the usual weak collection of tips from a cheap Philly crowd. Back to Coors tonight.

Mother's Day

• Yankees: 5
• Orioles: 3
• Sold: 164 pretzels

Visiting relatives this morning left me running a touch late out the door to Baltimore, and unexpected backups on 295** sealed my fate. I showed up late to the vendor callout and had to wait until the end of the list before I got to pick. No selection, actually: I was given an assignment to sell pretzels on the lower deck and had to make the most of it.

Pretzels are terrible, really, overall the worst thing to sell in the stadium. They connote no nostalgia, evoke no associations to the game, prompt no tips, and are cheap -- three bucks apiece -- so the commission payout is lower. A bad deal for vending all around. My standard call for them is, "Fresh Hot Pretzel!" but they're not really fresh. They're pulled out of a big cardboard box, spread them out on a baking sheet, spritzed with a butter spray and hailed with excessive amounts of large-granule salt (so that they appear excavated straight from a salt mine), and tossed in an oven for ten minutes or so. I tote around 30 at a time in a metal box reading SUPERPRETZEL on the front, heated by a little can of sterno.

The real magic is that out of this method, and of such poor materials, is crafted such a tasty item: ideally browned to a shiny light crust on the outside housing a doughy, chewy interior. Add mustard -- and de-salt to a more consumable sodium level -- and you've got a meal. Sort of.

"Buy your Mom a pretzel!" didn't really work as a call, so I had to call it a day after 167 sold.

I actually saw a few families out there, not unusual for any Sunday, and a few more mothers than normal. It reminded me of a Mother's Day a few years ago, when Howard Hart, a lifetime vendor with a voluble streak, took note of it in the loadup room:

"When you go back out there, you'll see out there in the seats a couple of little old ladies sitting there in the shade about a third of the way down the baseline -- just a couple of them together in nice flowered dresses and big hats -- and you know they never go to the baseball game normally, don't even know anything about baseball, never would even be out otherwise except that it's Mother's Day, and you know that this is a special day for these sweet older ladies and it's just...it's nice, y'know?"

Tossing Peanuts

• Yankees: 12
• Orioles: 5
• Sold: 197 bags of peanuts

A big turnaround tonight. I was one of only two peanut vendors at Camden, so plenty of room to roam with a big satchel of peanuts slung over each shoulder. An easy vend because they're so light, and their association with the game ("buy me some peanuts and...") make them an easier sell: $3.75 for a 6-ounce bag. Call out "Big Bag of Peantus Here!" and hands pop up from all sides. Good for flow.

Better yet, you can toss them around to customers. Makes it more fun, and draws interest from the spectators. After some mishaps (I once tried for a long shot and ended up smacking a 70-year old woman in the head -- she was not pleased) I've refined my technique and can hit with reasonable accuracy up to about 35 feet away. The secret for me is going with an underhanded toss. Getting the right amount of elbow into it for a real overhand pitch throws too many variables into the mix.

People love it; every now and then a guy (and it's always a guy) will call clear over from the next section, holding out an open hand to receive a long toss. I like it even though my nerves kick in, and as long as there aren't any elderly people nearby I'll indulge him. Call over to him to make sure he's ready, and let everyone in the flightpath know there's about to be flying peanuts whizzing overhead, then let loose. That plastic bag pops out in a hard reverse spin and heads out over the rows, getting smaller and smaller until it whaps my customer in the palm. Crowd entertained, customer satisfied, and I keep the five dollar bill. I'm no Roger Owen of course, that legendary Dodger Stadium peanut man whose talents allow him to toss two bags behind the back and have them split with accuracy to two different customers, but it's energizing.

By the end I'd sold 6 and half 30-bag loads, not close to my Camden Opening day blowout of 12 and a half loads (everyone was throwing money around then, and I ended up with $320 in tips). I think I missed the Corona ticket on the board instead and made a bit of extra money, but I only regretted it for about half a minute. There was more money in a second-tier beer on a Saturday night, but the decision has to do with the difference between money and fun.

College Night Disaster

• Yankees: 4
• Orioles: 0
• Sold: 98 beers

It was Camden on a Friday night, Yankees in town for a three-game series. The makings of a great night, so potentially good I skipped Friday night in Philly to be there. What I didn't heed were Beerman Neal's warning: that College Night could hurt the whole thing.

Themed nights are supposed to be clever ways of getting asses in seats that would otherwise be empty. If you're going to have a Gay Night, do it on a Tuesday. Stitch n' Pitch (a charming RFK promotion that invited local knitting enthusiasts to work on their wool sweaters while taking in the game) is fine for a Monday. No one's there those days. But Friday night specials for college kids -- for whom every night is a potential weekend -- is dumb. And this one attracted enough colleges pukes to fill not one side of the upper deck, but just about the whole thing.

That was disheartening enough, but a third-party subcontractor was brought in to provide 15 extra vendors to add to the ranks. There were twice as many beer tickets on the board as usual, a mixed blessing since I was able to get one but terrible since there were twice as many vendors competing for the same customers.

It was bad enough having to card just about every last person in that upper deck (I swear I didn't look as young at age 22 as these collegians did, unless at age 36 I'm aging more than I realize), and getting no tips from people who have barely enough to cover the $6.75 to begin with. Then things got worse. The vending manager racing in, waving her arms to cut off, announcing that there were to be no more beer sales at all in the upper deck. From that point on, everyone had to drop to the lower deck. So it turned out that twice as many vendors were selling to half a stadium's worth of people. By the start of the seventh inning and last call, I was so incredulous at having sold only four cases (when I'd hope to be up to ten), that I took a chance on a double load, praying for a pitching change. No luck: after a brisk six outs, I managed to unload exactly two beers, then had to get it back upstairs. Only the indulgence of a sympathetic elevator operator saved me from having to take six flights of steps.

What a disaster. I could have gone to Philly, or at least have chosen peanuts and had some fun flipping them while making a killing.

It might seem from reading this blog as if vending leaves me wrung out, disappointed, unhappy. This has been true recently, but it isn't always so. Vending is a job; it is about the money, but not entirely about the money, not by a longshot. It's about being there and performing a role in a stadium full of people, feeling and feeding off their energy; about having a clearly definable task and throwing yourself into it full force, being called again and again and from all sides, feeling necessary, and moving so fast during the brief time allotted that any sense of time is lost, and a flow takes hold, a flow of sweat and faces and the roaring moaning crowds' emotion hanging in the atmosphere, and two hundred brief energetic conversations one after another, carrying you through the most intense labors and not feeling it at all, instead feeling a sense of elation and connection and -- this may seem an overstatement, but it's not -- transcendance. And it's about being willing to do it again and again, night after night. Top vendors love the money, sure, but I think they're like me and are digging for that extra tremor and shiver on the skin that's the feeling of being alive, and it's why having tonight's circumstances blocking that feeling can turn anticipation into such disappointment. Again, I might be completely going overboard on all of this, and maybe it's just me, but those that don't get this feeling at least once in a while are missing out. We all have our avocations. Some people collect stamps.

Lemonade!

• Twins: 4
• Orioles: 5
• Sold: 60 lemonade

Still too cold for lemonade, and a night game, so I didn't dump but three loads on the people. Also no kids, who love that sugary stuff: they load up 20 cups into a four by five square wire rack, squeeze in a token half lemon and drop the rind carcass in the bottom, fill to the brim with ice, and run the rack under a sugarwater dispensing spigot, filling four at a time. Tops snapped on, straws shoved in the pocket, and I'm ready to sell three dollars of expense for 80 bucks a rack.

Because the lemonade wasn't enough to interest them tonight, I had to jazz it up a bit, shoving the straws under the hats of the kids, walking around with a couple shoved under my own hat, and stealing a line I picked up from the primo lemonade man at Cactus League Spring Training: "Lemonade, lemonade, just like Grandma made!" Works like a charm for a chuckle, even if it doesn't rope them in.

Down near the right foul pole someone stopped me and asked, "Where's the guy who does the shaking thing?"

Then it happened again behind homeplate: "Hey, what happened to the Shakey guy?"

And to them both I told them, "No more lemonade for him. Shakey sells Coors down the third-baseline."

Mark, or Shakey as he's known for his sales style, is somewhat of a local celebrity for selling lemonade at Camden. Most vendors (yours truly included) will tend toward a mostly direct sales approach, holding up the item and calling it out for sale ("Lemonade!" "Hot Diggity Dog, here!"). But Shakey adds a certain brio to it, raising it to the level of performance. He races, and sprints, shouts himself hoarse, goading the audience to indulge and "Get fired up, now!" and asks, "Are you ready to party?" He's a little guy* who can fill a couple of sections at a time with this wild energy.

Though he now applies this approach to beer sales, where the money is, he developed this manic persona on lemonade. As the story goes, he was trying to help a friend out at the ballpark, schlepping loads of lemonade up the high stairs, when someone mildly complained that he hadn't shaken it.

"You want it shaken? I'll shake it for ya!" And, a fit of pique, started pumping it crazily, gyrating his body, vibrating his head, and greatly amusing the customer. His frustrations released, Shakey realized that this -- putting all of himself into a three-hour performance and making it his own -- was how to turn this labor into fun. The kids loved it especially, and it drew plenty of tips from parents happy to see their kids entertained. He's also turned it into a cottage industry; he gets plenty of press, he's got his own website, glossy promotional brochure, and business cards that label him "Lemonade Shaking Guy," and he rents himself and the routine out for corporate events, bartending gigs, and golf tournaments. Good money for being a spaz.

By the end of it, he's lost his voice and wrung himself out completely, night after night, staggering limply back to the stockroom, and trying gamely to keep his eyes open. Now that I've gotten to know him, I realize that this up-tempo act is based on some aspect of his genuinely hyperactive personality.

Shakey and his routine also play some role in my beginnings as a vendor. It was in the months leading up to the Nationals' arrival in DC back in 2005 that I read an old article** in the Washington Post about him and his contribution to the ballpark experience. It was one of those life-changing couple of minutes spent: here was a guy who got to work at the stadium, made a good bit of money for a couple hours' worth of work, and developed a performance routine to add to the whole thing. Then I decided that, by hook or by crook, I was going to do the same thing for the Nationals. Now I work with the guy.

*His small stature, which I'd estimate at about 5'5", allows him to pull off this aggressive routine. He once told me and Neal that we could never really make it work for us, that at our size trying to shout and yell and flail wildly would only be off-putting, rather than appealingly clownish. Seeing the Shakey routine from my vantage point selling in the same aisle is quite a treat, and I have to acknowledge that he's right about that. While he's shouting "C'mon, let's party! Get a fired up beer!" I could only offer some counterprogramming, stepping by in relaxed fashion, holding the peanuts low in my hands, and saying in a low tone, "Casual, low-key peanuts."

**I feel validated in perpetuating one of my odder habits: reading from the pile old newspapers that I haven't gotten to yet. I've endured some understandable ribbing for this, but I contend that the newspaper isn't really just about the 'news' but also about features, long-form articles, the comics, essays, and columns. There's evergreen stuff in there, and having a yellowed page of a 2001 copy of Post help direct me, four years later, to my current avocation seems to bear this out. At least that's how I justify this obsessive quirk.

Apres le Deluge, le Deluge

• Twins: 1
• Orioles: 4
• Sold: 50 cartons Dibs Ice Cream

In Baltimore, a powdery mist fell upon Camden Yard before giving way utterly to repeated waves of driving rain. It pooled and puddled and drained from the spouts, and hardy groups of slickered fans huddled inside for it to blow over. Owing to my low rank on the vendors' seniority list (#59 of about 63 that ever bother to show up), I was selling "Dibs"** in this sloppy environment, and only members of of a few big kids groups bought any of it. Once the kids were covered, a made a lame attempt to drum up some business (or at least interest) among everyone else:

Dibs, Dibs ice cream here
Creamy confection you eat with your beer!

-- before giving up during the second rain delay, then watching the Capitals lose game three against the Penguins.

37 bucks in commission made, 6 in tip, of which 3 of it was tipped out. This has got to end. If April showers bring May flowers, then what do May showers bring?

** Small cartons of chocolate covered chunks of flavorless white ice cream; at $4.50 easily the worst deal of anything I sell anywhere.

Trouble

• Houston: 10 [Game Suspended]
• Nats: 10
• Sold: 72 beers, 65 peanut/Crackerjack

The band Cake has a line in a song: "I don't that much about Cinco de Mayo/I'm not really sure what it's all about." I'm with them. What is it really, except a marketing opportunity for beer companies? I even heard recently that it's more of a big deal in the U.S. than it is in Mexico, owing to the advertising efforts of Corona brand beer.

A couple of things made this another blown day. First, I forgot my stadium ID (it, being without any identifying photograph, or even my name on it, simply functions as a lanyarded ticket for employees to get into the park) which led to a half hour delay. The security guard recognized me but wouldn't let me in though she's been checking me in for over a year, nor would she fake it because of her fear that the security camera would display evidence that I was showing an old library card instead of the featureless ID. Another security guy said he'd check with my manager in the room but wouldn't let me follow him down there, and he ended up talking to another vendor instead of my manager, and hadn't even gotten my name to drop, so no one came to retrieve me from this hassle.

Anyway, I eventually got in and headed straight up to the big kiddie groups in the upper deck with a double load of peanuts and Crackerjack to make up for the lost time. The second time-consuming hassle that I encountered there is better recounted in the statement I had to write up for management, copied below. It leaves out the high-point of the confrontation, when I addressed 150 schoolkids as a revolutionary, exhorting them that buying a bag of peanuts "is about Choice! You have the choice to buy if you have the money and the desire to buy! Do not let yourself be stifled by the forces that would quash capitalism! It is the American Way!" And raising my fist overhead. But I digress:

During the Nationals' day game on Tuesday, May 5, I transported a load of beer, peanuts and Crackerjack from room 138 up to the 400 level seats on the first base side of the stadium. I made sure to market to the large group of kids in the student group there, since my experience indicates that they maintain a healthy taste for peanuts and Crackerjack. So I'm in the midst of selling to this amiable, energetic bunch of schoolkids, calling out and making them laugh and lobbing softballs of product to them (amid a bunch of parent/teacher chaperones, who were similarly amused), when suddenly a single howling voice of protest bellows out from about five rows down and about 20 seats across.

"No peanuts or anything can be sold to this group!" she's shouting across the rows. "We have too many allergies and you can't sell in this section!" (This is paraphrased closely from memory.)

As a vendor working in my stadium, and not having been informed of any restrictions on selling anything in that or any non-premium section [beyond the standard enforcement of alcohol policy] I took umbrage at her declaration of these limitations, and so I ignored them. These kids were my customers, and they -- willingly brandishing their money (emphasis on their in this phrase) and being old enough to alert me to any allergies from which they might suffer -- were the rightful focus of my attention. I informed her of my intention continue my work, right there, where the customers happened to be.

I continued selling with some success, and then much to my surprise, I turned around to find this person has ambled over to loudly restate her disapproval of my selling to these students. To which I vigorously protested my right to do my job while at my place of work. She then declaimed her intention "to speak with somebody." Which she did.

Several points should be bullet-pointed here:

• There were other patrons, not in any way affiliated with this school, its staff, or its students, seated in these sections. They too had a right to buy from me, not limited by dictate of any single patron, no matter how loudly she may elucidate her claim to impromptu establishment of stadium law.
• At no point did any of the other parents/teachers/chaperones associated with this group express any consternation over my presence or the fulfillment of my duties.
• Also, at no point did my antagonist in this drama ever introduce herself, state her affiliation with this school group, or inform me of her position of authority among them, either while hawing across the upper deck, or in face to face contact. I found out in time and from a third party that she was the Principal of the Potomac Valley school. I think this is her.
  
• Her approach was purely confrontational, controlling. She never explained her reasoning below the level of an admonishing scold, never spoke to me but at me, as if that section of the stadium was her school and as if I were one of her students. I would not consider visiting her place of work, and dictating to her the terms of commission of her duties. She did nothing to show me similar respect.

Eventually, I was pulled aside by my manager, and spoke briefly to a representative from Levy, who seemed quite level-headed about the whole thing, listening to her complaint as customer (understood by me as necessary procedure in all cases) and simply telling me to stay out of that section for the rest of the game.

Fair enough; I willingly complied, never seeing her again that day. I did pass some of the students on the concourse and by the stairwell; they expressed interest in acquiring some Crackerjack for their very own but balked at the price (a rationale for passing I can respect), and seemed most interested in taking my picture with their cellular phones.

Low Attendance

• Houston: 4
• Nats: 9
• Sold: 38 beers, 24 peanuts/Crackerjack

Back in DC I got to the rainy park late to find a group of the vendors hadn't even bothered to go out. Instead, they were clustered on the concourse counting the number of people in the seats in the first inning: about 750 at that point. This is partly due to the weather, and partly a trend affecting the worst team in the majors. The Nats are currently 28th of 30 teams in home attendance, above KC and Pittsburgh with a little over 19,000 per game. That's paid attendance -- in reality, the no-shows bring the total much farther down. For tonight's game the official box score lists 14,000, but not much more than 3,000 were actually there to enjoy the misty, threatening evening.**

The Vending Manager promptly allowed anyone who wanted to skip to leave without penalty. I hate showing up to a party and not taking at least one dance. So I sold a case and a half before going home. Has the Season Started Yet?


**The record, by the way, for worst attendance at an MLB game during the modern era was achieved when the A's hosted the Mariners -- 653 showed up. The overall record is even worse: 23 watched the Yankees and (Philly) Athletics in Philadelphia in 1916.

Another Rainy Day

• Game canceled
• No sales

The nondescript hotel in Essington I'm staying at with another vendor during this weekend series seems to have a contingent of roadies from the Grateful Dead tour also here. Among them are a few vendors of Grateful Dead tie-dye shirts and Grateful Dead silver jewelry and other assorted Grateful Dead memorabilia. I chatted with one whose room was next door to mine, and it seems a parallel world of travel, and relying on event attendees for sales, and contending with weather. They run more as individual businesses (having to procure licenses, et al.) than we do, though, and I don't envy them their lifestyle, even if they guy next door winters in Thailand between summertime tours.

Summer, at this point in early May, still seems a long way off. All morning the rain came down outside the window, spattering the broken asphalt of a gray parking lot. It would sometimes leave only a light spatter in the big puddle outside for a while, but then resume as a steady pour without every fully letting up, and more on the way from the West. It was five minutes before noon when the man on ESPN announced that the game had been called, and I and my roommate skipped town a few hours earlier than expected, heading into the endless spattering cloud all the way down 95.

Unnecessary Drop

• Mets: 5
• Phillies: 6
• Sold: 216 beers, 6 sodas

In Philadelphia's ballpark I'm identifiable by a vendor number of "78" in bold red letters stitched to my yellow Russell jersey. Each of us has our own, as if we're members of our own team racing around in parallel competition amid the spectators, and it's supposed to help ID us in the event of a poorly handled transaction or customer complaint. One Mets-supporting numbnut told me bluntly, apropos of nothing, "I don't like that number." No reason, really, just didn't like it, liked other numbers, just not that one. And so you don't, my man.

I thought to ask him if he was one of those geeky sorts that had a peculiar affinity for prime numbers, but then I would have had to explain what a prime number is, and he wouldn't have gotten it anyway. Other New Yorkers objected the the $6.75 price point for beers -- the same people who pay two grand for a shoebox space in a tenement -- when it's $9.25 at New York's stadia.

They were really spoiling for confrontation, in the same way they seem to enjoy standing up and jeering the locals when a Met makes it to first base on a walk. A series of similar interactions with these loutish characters reminded me that I really love New Yorkers, but only when they stay in New York. It also added to my poor mood at the way the vend itself had gone.

First, I gotta explain that beyond the basics -- carry a bucket of beer, circulate among the people, advertise via bellowed call, collect money, dispense product -- there are in fact subtleties to beer vending. (Indulge my insistence on this.) A critical area could be called "stadium layout management," or more simply, "Where to Go and When." There's a particular amount of money out there in the seats, unknowable in exact amount, and a certain number of vendors to draw it out of their pockets. Not at vendors make the same amount, and those that pull in the highest commission go where they can get the biggest slice of the pie for themselves.

The simplest thing to do is to sell to the area closest to your home commissary, those load-up rooms dotted on the various sides and levels of the stadium. This obviously saves valuable time. A more advanced move is to weigh the benefits of travel, forgo the nearby customers, and head elsewhere. The Drop (from upper-deck commissary to lower-deck patrons) is a common move, one I'd made a habit of employing in Philadelphia each and every game. I'd started there by climbing up to the vertiginous heights of the sky-scraping 400-level seats, but denser crowds and better tips on the lower level have left me mostly taking the elevator to the right-field bleachers right below. It took more energy to transport, but it was worth it.

I may have limited myself unnecessarily in this approach, though. While I fell back on this trick game after game, I have today found that on sellout days like today, there are still sales to be made up top. I should have changed course about three innings earlier, when a poorly timed drop left me toting two cases of Coors around the long rows along the first base side with hardly any sales to show for it. Competitors hawking Coors were everywhere; each row seemed to have it's own salesman of the Silver Bullet Beer. I was no longer so alone in employing The Drop technique.

I should have identified this and changed course quickly, but a myopia born of habit had me stubbornly continuing to pace the low-altitude rows. Only eventually, when I met whole sections of under-watered buyers in the high-deck sections, did I realize this basic error. For the last inning and a half, I hucked that hoppy stuff in twos and fours at a pace that would have had me happy by the end of it all. But there I was stuck at the same sales total as the night before: 9 1/2 cases sold, and ruing all the more when I found that I'd been out-smarted and -sold by at least a couple of vendors I usually beat, on a kind of sellout day that only happens once in a while. And then the self-recrimination set in.

Friday Night Phillies

• Mets: 7
• Phillies: 4
• Sold: 240 beers, 6 sodas

The difference between vending at desolate Nationals Park and on Friday night in Philadelphia with the Mets in town couldn't be greater. DC is an indifferent baseball newbie, Philly nurturing (if 'nuturance' can be a capability applied to Philadelphians) a 120+ year relationship with a team they alternately love and jeer. Washingtonians tend to order in singles, then sip; the Philly crowd orders multiples, then orders more. Citizen's Bank is jammed on most weekend games, standing room only crowds lining the lower bowl, and ordering plenty of beer.

I'm assigned to sell Coors Lite in Philly, in a restrictive seniority arrangement that has Coors on the middle road above lowly Bud Light -- and even worse Budweiser regular -- and below the stadium's real moneymaker: Miller Lite. It's unusual that Miller would be the big seller, since Bud is the stadium's sponsor, but it's that sponsorship that I think makes the Miller vend so well; with the concessions stands offering plenty of Bud and almost no Miller, the vendors become the main distributors of the stuff. In some ways, with the largest contingent of vendors actively marketing Miller -- calling it out loudly directly to the people, where the mass of potential beer-buyers can witness it being sold in quantity, and herd buying mentality can take hold -- I think Miller has the better sponsorship deal of the two.

Tonight was decent: a little over nine cases sold (with the other half stowed away in the room 205 freezer for sale tomorrow), and a pocketful of tips for my trouble. I'm hoping tomorrow's even better.

The Nationals Are Terrible

Cardinals: 9
Nationals: 4
Sold: 96 beers, 24 peanut/Crackerjack

Let's start at the beginning. The Nationals, the team I started my odd career vending beer with 4 years ago, are rotten, the worst team in baseball for the second year running. Now, this blog is supposed to be about me (satisfaction of narcissicism being the motivator for blog-keeping, generally) and my job as a stadium vendor, and not about the game, but what happens on the field matters quite a bit for my job. Nobody wants to see an awful team (which the Nats are), and they don't want to pay major league prices to see them (when the product they're getting is minor league). So the place was mostly empty, the official attendance of 18,007 probably high considering the paid no-shows. With no one to sell to, I'm left lugging a bucket of beer from the lower level to the upper deck, where I find that the other vendors have already had the same idea.

And there I am, looking out at an expensive empty ballpark from the high reaches, hearing the chirping of kiddie groups who aren't in my market, holding a load of Miller Lite none of these St. Louis fans want to pay $7.50 a bottle for. A doughy midwesterner points to another vendor's Budweiser bucket and says, "Get what he's got and maybe we'll buy one." And that's why I'm circulating among three ballparks this season -- Nationals Park, Camden Yard, and Citizen's Bank in Philly -- and putting a low priority on D.C. This guy had it right:

Ovechkin batting clean-up might be an improvement indeed.

Anyway, it's the last day of April and I'm actually plenty late getting started on this blog. I'm 62 working events into this calendar year -- 30 spring training games in Arizona preceding a very full April. Being otherwise unemployed, I'm free to pursue a quixotic goal: to work as many events as I can during this calendar year. It won't be all baseball. Football, soccer, concerts and who knows what else will factor in. But baseball is the season, a daily grind that allows this to resemble at least somewhat, a full-time job. Three hard hours a day, seven days most weeks.

April 22: Sunny Day

Construction cranes loom over the outfield wall; in the process of building a Hilton that will block the view of downtown -- including the landmark Bromo-Seltzer Tower -- from view of the stadium.

• Toronto ---- 3
• Baltimore -- 7

A sunny day has come to Baltimore; blue skies and another home win for the Orioles. A good mood prevailed in the crowd, and my hotdog bucket felt as light as a feather. The elements had come together: perfect weather, a weekend day, and a home team on a recent roll, and a win today. Up and down the rows I went, and everyone seemed to want a dog. 120 of them later, I turned in an empty case and I was skipping across the street to the bar.

There, the vendors were collected around a folding table outside and basking in the sun.

"They were drinking today!" said vendor Clancy with satisfaction. "Everyone had a good day! And on a Sunday, too!"

Every beer seller expects to have a good Saturday night. That's a drinking night. Friday night is a drinking night. Sunday afternoon is for the families, kids' day. It's for maybe one beer and a lemonade for junior, and remembering to mow the lawn afterward. But rolling with beer nonstop on the Sabbath is a gift from God to the beermen. And so, after the seventh inning, they rested. And drank beer with heads tilted to the sky.

April 18: Back to Beerman

A public television crew followed Clarence the beerman around while he sold hotdogs tonight. Here, a boom mike captures the sounds of the pre-game callout.

• Philadelphia ----- 4
• Washington ----- 5

Washington wins tonight and so do I: I went back to selling beer. It wasn't the best game but it wasn't the worst -- it was a exactly what you expect during a Wednesday game. This night was a touch warmer than last night, as spring picks up steam. I won't be back until the team returns for the Mets series in a week, which will give the season a chance to ripen a little more.

But the beer rolled better than food has, and I'm not looking back for the rest of the year. Enough of hotdogs and running out of buns. No more stealing packets of relish from the condiments stand, having the sterno flame out on me late in the game. No more rank hotdog water sloshing around on me when I'm balancing the case on my head, or waiting for the kid in the stockroom to heat up the next load. I'm back to beer for the rest of the year at RFK.

Above: Diane closes up for the night while receiving good news: "Really? They voted Sanjaya off! Now the contest can really begin!"

April 17: Poor Choices

60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's entry into Major League Baseball.

• Atlanta ------- 6
• Washington --- 4

After last night's relative success with hotdogs, I went at it again tonight. It's still cold, so I'm still in favor of avoiding the cold aluminum to tote around the hot steel box of dogs again. And one of the perennial top vendors, a 37-year veteran named Howard Hart, picked dogs ahead of me, which gave me confidence in the decision. So off I went again, for a loop around the upper deck.

But it is not wise to wish twice for the same thing. The air had warmed slightly, shifting lightly the interests of the audience. The hunger that had steadied sales just last night was no longer there, and I struggled through slow business. It doesn't take much to alter the spirit of a crowd.

On good nights, the product moves fast enough that you never hold onto a full case for very long at all, and it's mostly light going even as sales are heavy. Then, it's easy for the vendor to let the constant flow of activity carry him along in its slipstream and nine innings of sales are over in a flash. Bad games bring everything to a halt, and the irony is that slower sales make for harder work, as a full load is lugged around the deck over and over again. The vendor has to work for his business, through charm or conversation or evoking mere sympathy.

The first two cases went upstairs before I took the third down to the lower deck to compete with the other two dog vendors there. One of them was still on his second load, and the other -- Howard -- was just starting a fourth and not happy about it.

"I made a bad call," Howard said regretfully. "It's warm -- it's a beer night. I shoulda known that! I'm gonna finish this load and I'm out." He shook his head and seemed really disappointed; it might be strange to say that there is vendors' pride but he has it. Howard is competitive and doesn't want to give up the contest to poor judgment. Gambling and losing (on a non-alcoholic product no less) while watching everyone else leave you behind in sales totals, is like watching a party through the front window.

I finally got back to the re-stock room right as the game ended, having finished that third load. The cashiers were not at all impressed.

"About time you got back," one of them growled at me. The other one wouldn't even look at me, and kept counting money. "You are the last vendor in the stadium!"

"That should indicate something about my work ethic," I said, feeling the burn.

They were having none of that. "You're holding us all up, waiting for you to come back. I have to leave for work tomorrow at 5 a.m. for a two hour commute!"

I tried to protest that the people were still buying, and they were there at all, but this was falling on deaf ears. And she had a point; I have sympathy for anyone who has to wake up that early for their real job.

Vending is a 'fun job' -- fun to do in a fun place to be -- but it's not just that. There is money involved, and most vendors below a certain age hold down 'real jobs' -- full time with full commutes and real responsibilities. Being at the stadium is a break from all that, and extra money, and no time left to spare during the season. During a full homestand, a full week's worth of evenings are gone to the ballpark, and the Beerman's cycle runs a constant course: job, vend, job, vend, again and again and again.

This is especially true for the vendors who work full seasons at RFK and in Baltimore, who work as many as 160 games over the six months of the season in an unending mill of sweat and effort. They are painting and plumbing contractors, office workers, a travel agent, a nursing assistant, a tax accountant, sales managers, a travel agent, a couple of college students, and at least one researcher on the staff of a magazine. One vendor routes his schedule as a furniture truckdriver to Atlanta in time for Falcons football games in the fall. They are everyday players, and they are as comfortable with pounding, grinding labor as they are with the money it earns them.

April 16: Conversation

• Atlanta ------ 1
• Washington -- 5

Another night of vending hotdogs, just to keep warm. Not a bad call, since everyone's sales were at rock bottom and a couple of loads of dogs were enough to keep up.

"How much?" asked the girl in the outfield seats.

$6.25 per, I said.

She was apalled. "Are you kidding? That's expensive! How big are they?"

Big enough to satisfy, I told her. I held one up with tongs for inspection. This is a good icebreaker for slow times; there's something about a hotdog being held aloft -- nude without its bun -- that the audience finds amusing. Even a large hotdog proves a poor specimen of beef.

But the girl in the cheap seats was impressed enough to buy one. "That's long," she said. Her friends guffawed around her. "No, I mean it's a big hotdog!" Still more chuckling. Hotdogs inspire an adolescent sense of humor in adults, enough to possesses them to ask hey, how big is your weiner? when a guy selling franks comes around.

The girl let go and joined in: "All right, I'll take one of your big hotdogs." The guy next to her smirked through the whole thing, looking straight ahead at the outfield.

Hey, I told her. Don't say that to me right in front of this guy right here!

The guy continued to smile and say nothing. Does it bug you when she engages in such suggestive repartee with a vendor? I asked.

"Nope," he said.

I'm not even a threat?

"Nope," he said.

That's the problem! I called out. No one takes the hotdog guy seriously!

And it's true, the beerman is sort of your buddy the bartender. Food vendors are nothing of the sort. So I served up the dog -- with mustard and relish -- and kept going down the row with my bruised ego and a head full of dreams of it actually being warm enough to get back to vending beer.

April 14: Soccer

• Kansas City --- 4
• D.C. United --- 2

When it was first built, RFK stadium was designed to dually serve as homefield for the Redskins football team, and baseball's Senators. Now a dozen times a year, the pitcher's mound at RFK is lowered into the ground, sod is rolled out over the baselines, the lowerdeck that wraps around behind the home dugout is rolled out into the outfield, and the Nationals' home turf becomes a "football" (read: soccer) field home for DC United. Cost for each cycle of transformation: $40,000.

There is beer to be sold here, too, much of it to the rowdy sections of DC United loyalists who comprise the Barra Brava. Most of them have already reached a state of drunkenness by the time the game begins. Initially, soccer was to be a sideline to baseball vending for me. But I've gotten increasingly better at managing the early cutoff time -- the 65th minute, which leaves not more than an hour and a half of vending time -- and the reliable drinkers of the Brava allow for each game to be a minimum of five cases sold. Tips have gotten better, too. I'm still not sure if this is because I'm better at encouraging them, or because the generous habits of baseball fans have transferred to the soccer crowd over the past two years.

At any rate, soccer games -- including this season opening loss -- have recently proven to be better for vendors than baseball, as long as baseball is not yet really in its season. Baseball drinkers want a beer while they luxuriate in the sun, or are enfolded in a balmy night; soccer drinkers seem to approach it as winos do -- as insulation from the cold. My kind of audience.

April 9: Camden Yards

• Detroit ----- 2
• Baltimore -- 6

My life as a beer vendor isn't limited to the confines of Washington's RFK Stadium; when the Nationals are away I supplement my vending with ocassional field trips up the BW Parkway to Baltimore's Camden Yards. These are irregular jaunts, usually limited to Orioles' near-packed-house series with the Red Sox and Yankees, an empty weekend or two, and a big one-shot event like Opening Day.

In Baltimore, where the team has had 60 years to establish its relationship with the city, Opening Day sends a ripple through downtown. The Eutaw Street corridor was draped in banners and orange and black balloons, and clusters of people were collecting here and there, chatting excitedly about the game. Maybe it's because RFK is separated from the business core of DC, but that sort of energy doesn't swirl around the Nats quite yet.

After showing up early to fill out some paperwork and receive a vending uniform from Camden's HR department, I had some hours to kill and so spent it on a cold stroll through town. One shopkeeper, taking note of my employee-issue Orioles baseball cap, said: "In town for the game?"

Yes, that's what I'm here for.

"Ready to be disappointed, then," he said.

I've found this sort of fatalism to be common in Baltimore, a city that has reason to resort to the refuge of the disgruntled sports fan: blaming the owner. Peter Angelos -- a money-mad Greek who in an earlier age would have done well to become a despotic shipping tycoon instead of an opportunistic asbestos litigator -- has managed to turn the team into an utter dysfunction zone by consistently spinning sows' ears from silk purses, and creating so controlling an environment that vendors are forbidden from wearing shorts early in the season, no matter the weather. Long black pants only.

When are we allowed to go to shorts? I asked one of the vending managers.

"Whenever Angelos says we can let you," she said glumly from behind the counter, dirisively emphasizing his name. The serfs are unhappy in the Angelos Kingdom.

The energy of Camden's home Opener, though, still percolated. The vendors began to aggregate in the basement room of the old warehouse building that forms the backdrop for right field, and the volume rose with them. Many of these vendors have grown old with the team, having sold beer in Baltimore for 15 years or more, and a grizzled few have histories that extend back to Memorial Stadium. This is another thing that is largely missing from Washington and its third-year baseball club: institutional memory.

I know plenty of these vendors, who come down the pike to double up on vending work at RFK, but as a big-game-only mercenary I'm still somewhat on the outside here: number 56 on a seniority list of 60, which keeps the Beerman out of beer for the foreseeable future. Today I was to be Pretzel Boy, vendor of cooked and buttered dough pebbled with gravel-sized rocks of salt. And only $2.75 per! Crappy for commissions, but priced to appeal to the penny-pinching upperdeck market for whom a $4.50 hot dog is too great an expense.

I grabbed the big metal bucket and started by bound up and down row after row of the upper deck, bellowing, "Superpretzel!" and "It's Pretzel time!" and looking closely for finger-raised signs of sale. Grab the warm pretzel with tongs, shove product into paper sleeve, toss them the mustard squirter if they want something on it.

"No, mustard," they said. "Why is this is in the red ketchup bottle?" Because they were out of yellow bottles and that's what they gave me. Working at RFK has gotten me used to vending supply rooms that were out of the supplies they were built to provide.

I try and continue to appear cheerful when they hold out their hand to recieve the quarter change. People will tip a beerman all day and into the night for lugging the foamy stuff into the bleachers, but they same relationship doesn't typically carry over to the food and soda vendors no matter what kind of sweat you're obviously working up. I looked over at the beer vendors in the next row and felt a sort of longing, like a nine-year-old who knows he could hack sixth grade but is still stuck in third. The beermen were readily establishing relationships with their happy customers, because the beerman is an iconic stadium character, while a grown man selling pretzels is sort of a dunce.

The other problem with a cooked product like pretzels is that you only reload as fast as the kid in the kitchen bothers to heat them up. Every round I take out I'm doing what I can to shave seconds off my sell time, while I come home to an empty oven. Honey, I want to yell, what have you been doing while I was at the office?

By the time the ninth inning is starting and I've peddled my sixth load, it doesn't matter anymore that the supply room is out of pretzels altogether. I split the seventh with the other Pretzel vendor on the upperdeck and sell a few more (bringing the tally to 187 units sold) before the game is over in a win for the home team and 44,000 happy Baltimoreans spill out of the stadium to continue drinking at a row of bars across the street. There I spent a few minutes conferring with a few of the other vendors there, amid piles of beer bottles and the din of hair-band rock blaring out of overcranked speakers, before heading back to the land inside the Beltway. Another honest day of work completed.