The ‘butler’ did it — all

Nick Christensen

Tuesday, July 15, 2003 | 9:53 a.m.

One recent day in the life of 51s clubhouse manager Rick Schweitzer:

Noon: Schweitzer arrives at Cashman Field, and begins setting up equipment for the game and stocking the clubhouse refrigerators.

1:30: Players start to arrive. Schweitzer handles their mail and does their personal laundry.

4:30: While the players are taking batting practice, Schweitzer is setting up the pregame meal, usually fruits, vegetables and a salad, plus materials if players want to make a sandwich.

5:30: Batting practice ends. Schweitzer clears the 51s' equipment from the field, sets up the dugout for the game.

6:45: Joe Thurston wants new "walkup music," and Schweitzer calls the press box with the request.

7:10: First pitch. Schweitzer is cleaning the clubhouse, washing batting practice uniforms, and sets up the catered postgame meal.

8:15: Schweitzer takes a break to watch the a few innings of the game.

10:00: Back in the clubhouse, Schweitzer washes the players' uniforms as they come in, keeps the food clean, enforces clubhouse rules on the media.

11:00: Most of the team is gone, and Schweitzer is busy cleaning up the clubhouse, showers, bathrooms, and floors.

1 a.m.: The clubhouse is ready to go for the next day, and Schweitzer goes home for the night.

When most people make a life-altering career move, they do it because they work too hard, because their labor's too menial, because they want to move up in the world.

51s clubhouse manager Rick Schweitzer got one of the three.

Schweitzer, the team's 46-year-old "butler," works 11 hours a day, seven days a week, from April to September. He cooks, cleans, sets up equipment, loads planes, and loves every minute of being what he calls the "team mom."

"In a sense. I've always said, I'm like the policeman. I've got to watch what the media's doing, and guests have to come in and check in with me. I'm kind of like the postman because I do all the mail and send their mail out. I'm like the sheriff because I have to enforce the rules," said Schweitzer.

"But I'm definitely the mom. I'm cooking, I'm cleaning, I'm almost throwing a party for them every day."

You'd think working that much to cater to minor-league baseball players wouldn't be that high of an aspiration. But it's a good living, and one that Schweitzer loves. He left a job with IBM in 1996 to pursue a career as a "clubbie."

"Every year, I'd take three or four weeks' vacation, go to Phoenix, and enjoy baseball. I'd take the month of March off, I'd go to Phoenix, and I'd go to individual games and hang out at the ballparks," explained Schweitzer. "One day in 1994 -- after a game, I had great seats at an Oakland A's game, and I saw the groundskeeper out there, raking around home plate. I yelled out to him 'Do you mind if I come down and take a look at the field, to see a professional playing surface?'

"We started talking, and next thing I knew, I said it's interesting work, and I'd love to be able to do something like this. He said, 'If you're serious, can you be here at 8 tomorrow morning?' I took this position for the spring training season, and ended up working day and night for Oakland, just manicuring their playing surfaces at Papago Field in Phoenix."

The A's made Schweitzer an offer he couldn't refuse -- work as a clubhouse manager at Single-A Modesto. He loved it, and worked his way up through Double-A, and joined Triple-A Las Vegas in 1999.

51s general manager Don Logan, who has been with the team for its entire 20 years in Las Vegas, says Schweitzer is one of the best.

"When you have a bad clubbie, someone who doesn't do a good job back there, it's miserable," said Logan. "The players love him, he does a great job, the place is immaculate, and he's so good at what he does, he's able to go on the road and contribute there.

"He's a very important part of the baseball organization, and he doesn't get the credit he deserves. He deserves to have the guys that make 10 million bucks a year tipping him."

Schweitzer is the only clubbie in the PCL who travels with the team, organizing the team's shipping and taking pressure off trainer Jason Mahnke, who supervises road arrangements.

He's also the team's Cupid, setting up dates for players, and in the case of one nameless pitcher, its shaman, helping with the player's superstitions.

"I had a player who always ate spaghetti and meatballs on the Saturday night before a Sunday day game," he said. "So I had to make sure he had a plate of spaghetti no matter what I was serving, on the Saturday night before he pitched a Sunday start."

But perhaps his strangest request was for a player that had to undergo surgery near his home in North Carolina. The player asked Schweitzer to drive the car there, and he did, spending four nights and five days on the road, and picking up a nice tip and plane ticket back to Vegas on arrival in Charlotte.

Schweitzer said it's not unusual for him or to drive a player's car to Los Angeles after a call-up.

When he's not working -- from September to April -- he's at his home in Park City, Utah. But, despite being so far from home and the long hours, he said he wouldn't trade it in for the world.

"What I like is the long-term friendships I get from working with these guys, anywhere from two weeks that they're here, to the six months that they're here," said Schweitzer. "Getting to know somebody, and the next thing you know, they're in the big leagues, and I can say I know these guys.

"Getting paid for something you like is incredible. If it's not the big leagues, at least I can say I enjoy my job and the money that goes along with it. I don't think a lot of people can say that."