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By education and experience - Accountant with a specialty in taxation. Formerly a CPA (license has lapsed). Masters degree in law of taxation from University of Denver. Now retired. Part time work during baseball season as receptionist & switchboard operator for the Colorado Rockies. This gig feeds my soul in ways I have trouble articulating. One daughter, and four grandchildren. I share the house with two cats; a big goof of a cat called Grinch (named as a joke for his easy going "whatever" disposition); and Lady, a shelter adoptee with a regal bearing and sweet little soprano voice. I would be very bereft if it ever becomes necessary to keep house without a cat.
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Coors Field Nugget Eight - Uniforms and Wardrobe

Did you know that the home team pitcher chooses the uniform for the day? Usually in collaboration with input from the catcher, but the entire team has input.

I have received more than one call in the last couple of years from a woman who doesn't like black jerseys, and is quite offended when I tell her that the home team starting pitcher chooses the uniform of the day. I can not persuade her that I am correct in telling her who makes the choice. Her point is that black is unlucky. When I try to explain the history of baseball on this issue, she invokes her childhood in Brooklyn, and claims that she knows everything there is to know about baseball, since she dated one of the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers when she was young.

Did you know that on the last day of an away series, the team's stuff, jerseys, jock straps, shoes, socks, etc is packed up dirty and it's the job of the visiting clubhouse at the next stop to get everything clean? The "clubbies" in each visiting clubhouse get that job, and get tipped very well as a result. I think the tips are deserved when I stop to contemplate what greets them when they zip open gear bags to find yesterday's dirty everything.

Most clubhouse personnel work late into the night getting everything clean for the following day's game. The "clubbies" are, for the most part, young guys studying various types of sports management curricula at local colleges. The tips go a long way toward funding educations. However, the job makes college a much longer row to hoe because spring & fall class schedules will of necessity be part time, and summer school is probably out of the question.

Last October, at the team introductions before the first game in Boston, I spotted most of the Rockies clubhouse personnel in the line of support staff on the field not introduced while TV was live. I thought it was a very nice gesture (perhaps not unique to the Rockies) to take the clubbies along for the games away.

Coors Field has five or six huge washing machines and several equally monstrous dryers. The wardrobe department not only provides cold weather gear for game day staff which we can check out daily, (or "rent" for a season to the tune of a $100 deposit) but also performs minor repairs on team jerseys, adds names to jerseys for players called from the minors on a moment's notice, prepares all stadium photo ID cards and passes, keeps lost and found items related to stadium credentials and probably dozens of other tasks I don't even guess at.

A few tidbits for you to store away and bring up at the next appropriate conversation over drinks.


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