Wrigley Field Security Guard Had No Clue Who Joey Votto Was
Before Barstool made the grave mistake of bringing me back, this was me. Not Joey Votto, I don’t have nearly the OBP to be confused for him. Similar hairline though, but I digress. Before Dave rehired me I worked security at the visiting player’s gate at Fenway Park, better known as the triangle. On game day there are a million people buzzing in and out of that spot. Visiting players, high ranking team personnel, beer vendors, giant coach buses, guys who just work at Fenway with no official title but they’ve been there since Yaz was playing so you better stay out of their way. You’ve gotta remember a lot of different faces is what I’m getting at. You stop the wrong person and ask for their identification and your ass is outta there expeditiously. I would imagine a park like Wrigley operates somewhat similarly.
The workers always stop, show their ID badge, open their bag and head inside for a miserable, long as hell, hot as fuck shift inside the friendly confines. That’s the beer vendors, the cleaning crew, the cooks, the security, etc. The bigger bosses walk in and out like they own the place, mostly because they do. I’m not talking Tom Warner and John Henry, I’m talking people who make that building run who no one outside has ever heard of. To paraphrase a line from Blazing Saddles, they don’t need no stinking badges. It’s your job to stay out of their way while pretending like you’re patting down the 48-year old who makes hotdogs until the 7th inning stretch. And then, there are the visiting players.
Advertisement
The visiting players typically come in together on two coach buses. They don’t need badges because they are greeted by swarms of autograph seekers outside the gates and, again, arrive on two massive buses. They’re pretty difficult to miss. But sometimes a visiting player comes solo for a myriad of reasons. Baseball players aren’t always the easiest to identify. You could be a lefty specialist for an NL team that comes to town once every other year. That guy is getting stopped 10/10 times. A division rival’s best player, a guy who makes multiple trips to your park per year – sometimes in a given month – is a guy you should probably recognize. However, good on this guy for attempting to stop a trespasser. He’s on record for stopping someone trying to get by without proper identification. Where he fucked up is when he didn’t make Votto continue to reach into his back pocket and grab his MLB issued player card. Any dickhead with a pal could stage this exact scene and skate on through. But hey, I’ve been there, at a certain point in the day you just don’t give a shit. Have fun in there, buddy, do whatever you want. I’m making $80 before taxes today, just don’t burn down the ivy and we’re cool.
The most random player this happened to me with was Colby Rasmus. Except Colby did not come alone like Votto. He got off the bus, walked right over to the security table, reached into his wallet and pulled out his player card. To his credit, he looked like he could’ve been walking up the stairs selling cotton candy that afternoon, so I appreciated that he did that. At the same time, dude I just watched you walk off the bus with the rest of the Toronto Blue Jays. If you snaked your way on that bus in the first place, all power to you. No need to brag and show off your player card.
Ernie Johnson also was far too respectful. TBS was doing a national game so he was on the call and he was all about the procedure of checking in. Again, I respect someone who doesn’t think he’s too big time to just waltz into any old building and get the red carpet rolled out. But hey man, you’re Ernie Johnson. You have EJ’s Neat-O Stat Of The Night. You have to deal with Charles Barkley and Shaq for the majority of your life. Get your ass in there and call this ballgame already.
Finally, in Fenway security stories absolutely no one asked for but hey it’s a Saturday and the blog is slow so go fuck yourself and read, the eternal Mike Timlin. This wasn’t a game day, I was working Gate D which is at the front on Jersey Street right next to the Players’ parking lot. On non-game days you get a lot of people trying to come in for free and just run amuck, despite the fact that there are a billion tours a day. Folks just want to mosey on in, take a few pictures of the field, run the bases, maybe get some BP in like it was a municipal field. You hear a lot of, “I missed the last tour and my flight leaves first thing in the morning and I’m never coming back to Boston I promised my great grandfather I’d sprinkle his ashes on the mound please can you let me in,” stories and you just tell these people, “No.” And then one afternoon a man approaches me, his family off to the side, and starts giving me the same song and dance in a Texas sounding accent. He’s wearing a camo hat and Oakleys, he’s got some facial hair working for him, and he REFUSES to say his name. Since it’s a random day of the week, nothing special about this particular day, it takes me a couple of sentences before it hits me. “You’re Mike Timlin.” I didn’t ask, I stated that he was, in fact, Mike Timlin. To which he agreed. I had to explain to him that he was a part of the 2004 Red Sox and that he needn’t waste his time asking me for anything. Anyone on the ’04 team can walk inside Fenway any time, day or night, and do whatever the fuck they want far as I’m concerned. Anyone who disagrees doesn’t deserve to work there, IMHO.