Greg Larson - Clubbie: A Minor League Baseball Memoir

Greg Larsons Clubbie signals the arrival of an important new voice to American letters.... Clubbie is more than a coming-of-age story told via Americas pastime: it is an elegiac requiem for all who fall short of the one million forms of the American Dream.

Joe Jackson, author of Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary

Its easy to romanticize baseball. But from the inside, in the trenches of the Minor Leagues, the game is not so pure. With an excellent eye for detail, Greg Larson captures every tobacco stain and dirty sock in this memoir of life as a clubhouse attendant. Its a well-written, heartfelt chronicle of growing up in a game that doesnt want to.

Brad Balukjian, author of the Los Angeles Times best seller The Wax Pack

Imagine Holden Caulfield washing jock straps in the clubhouse of a Minor League baseball team. Then imagine Jim Bouton revealing the secrets of dreamers who struggle to make it to the Big Show. Enter Greg Larson with a voice and secrets all his own. This stunning debut memoir is about baseball and love, about the double edge of dreams. Larson is a natural.

Michael Pearson, author of the New York Times notable Imagined Places: Journeys into Literary America

Greg Larson

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln

2021 by Greg Larson

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover images from iStockphoto.com: Torn paper: Nikola Vukojevic; Night sky: Matt Redfern; Baseball diagram: block37.

Author photo Emily Howell Photography.

Parts of chapter 3 previously appeared in Switchback 11, no. 22 (Fall 2015).

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Larson, Greg, 1988 author.

Title: Clubbie: a minor league baseball memoir / Greg Larson.

Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020029688

ISBN 9781496224293 (hardback)

ISBN 9781496226334 (epub)

ISBN 9781496226358 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Larson, Greg, 1988 | Aberdeen IronBirds (Baseball team) | Minor league baseballUnited States. | Baseball fansUnited StatesBiography.

Classification: LCC GV 865. L 324 A 3 2021 | DDC 796.357/640973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020029688

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For my dad, Ricky T.

I wiped the rain from my brow as I entered the lobby of Ed Smith Stadium, the Baltimore Orioles spring training home. My 97 Cadillac Deville had somehow survived. It was only seventy-five miles from my parents retirement community to the stadium in Sarasota, but the check engine light flashed Oriole orange the whole way. Nice, I thought. The sonofabitch is still alive.

I stood in the lobby awkwardly as Florida thunder clapped outside. Jake Parker, the man I was here to meet, eventually grabbed me. He wore a black Nike Orioles shirt that hung loose on his muscle-bound torso. He was attentivepolite, evendespite being brusque. He walked with speed and expected me to keep up.

The downpour seemed to worsen, leaving players and coaches to wander the stadium, half-dressed and bored.

You look just like your YouTube videos, Jake said as we walked.

Oh? Which ones did you watch?

Stand-up routine. Said Winthrop University, I think.

Oh, god.

No, it was good. You were kinda funny.

We walked into his office, which was an empty classroom with a cluttered desk against the wall. He told me everything I needed to know for my new job: how to do laundry as quickly as possible, how much food to put out for pregame meals, how to swing deals with the stadium beer supplier. Jake had worked his way from being the IronBirds clubbie to his current position: equipment manager for the Orioles Minor League teams. So he knew his shit.

He alluded to me buying groceries for team meals.

That money comes out of my pocket? I said.

He nodded.

And I use their dues to pay for it?

Dont worry. If you do it right, youll have plenty of cash leftover. Whatre you charging, six a day?

Seven, actually. During my phone interview, my new boss had mentioned something odd: that players would pay me dues for feeding them. He suggested I go with seven dollars per home game. It seemed as good as any other number, so I agreed.

Hmm. Thats a lot at your levelI think guys get like $1,200 a month therebut you should be good to go. Youve basically included your tip in the dues, which is fine, but dont expect anything extra on top of it. Plus youre new, so the respect factor isnt there yet. In professional baseball, respect is earned not given. He eyed my chest. You look like you might work out. A little bit.

I shrugged. I stayed in shape but I wasnt very muscularabout six foot, 185 pounds.

You might wanna start lifting weights once you get to Aberdeenhelps to maintain order in the clubhouse. I used to be a teaching sub for a middle school. Thats how you gotta treat these guys: just like middle schoolers, because thats what most of em are. Last week I wrestled one of the players because he said he could take me. Were we joking? Sure, of course. But was it a little serious too? Abso-fucking-lutely. These guys have to know youre not afraid of them. If they come up giving you an attitude, trying to get extra equipment they dont need or causing problems in the clubhouse, you cut a fuckin muscle in em and let em know whos in charge. He flexed his bicep at me and nodded as if to say, Capisce?

He took me to the laundry room. I asked him how much he made when he worked for the IronBirds.

He looked past my shoulder like we were about to make a drug deal.

Im only telling you this because were part of the same fraternity now, okay? My last two years in Aberdeen I made $19,000 a summer. Net.

Holy shit.

Dont get too excited. You wont make that much at first, but youll still do well. You dont show it, though. You live like youre fucking poor. The second guys start seeing youre making hand over fist, thats when the tips go down and you lose the clubhouse.

Shouldnt be a problem, I thought. I already had a flip phone. Nothing said poor like a flip phone.

He put on a pair of surgeons rubber gloves and snapped them over his wrists. He grabbed a pile of dirty, orange and black athletic clothes and threw them into an industrial washer.

You use gloves when you did laundry for Winthrop?

I shook my head.

Start using em. You dont know where some of these guys have been. Especially the coos.

The what?

Coos, he said. Dominicans. Try to split up their lockers, too. Just so they have to talk to the American guys. And dont give them any end lockersthey never tip.

As I tried to process what the hell Id just heard, a player walked into the laundry room.

Ah, perfect, Jake said. Greg, this is Alex Schmarzoo.

Its Schmarzo, the player said.

Schmarzoo! Jake said again, with kazoo-like inflection at the end.

I shook his hand. Greg Larson, I said. He looked at me and smiled all the way up to his eyes. He had a huge puff of brown hair on his head, which flowed into a mullet hanging down the back, a style that hadnt been cool sincewell, never.

You have any nicknames? Schmarzo said.

I dunno. People sometimes call me G-lar.

Eh. Well just call you G.

And is it Schmarzo or Schmarzoo?