If you want a bit of nostalgia, it doesn't get any better than this!

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - My Oh My (Official Video)

The Many Faces of Jim Devitt

As many of you know, I worked the visiting clubhouse for the Seattle Mariners a Major League Baseball team. Since I worked for the visiting teams, I would wear the uniform of the visiting team. That put me in a bunch of different uniforms. 

I figured I would share some of those looks, both good and really bad. Yes, it was the late seventies, but that's no excuse as to how geeky some of these pictures are ...

Here's a little pre-game action while sporting the Kansas City Royals blue traveling uniform.

The Post All-Star Game Bounty

Being a batboy at the All-Star game did have some perks. Besides the great people and awesome times, I walked away with a couple of choice items. It's not every day that someone gets their own bat made for them!

 

Both Louisville Slugger and Adirondack custom made commemorative bats for me as the batboy for the National League. Although the relationships I forged I'll never forget, I did get a couple of nice things from some of the players.

I went from player to player getting autographs from the entire National League All-Star team on the official 50th All-Star game ball. That ball is loaded with baseball greats, you can find the list of All-Stars in my previous post here.  

The All-Star Game

Game day had finally arrived. Adrenalin was my main power source after sleeping at the Kingdome for three straight nights. The Groundskeepers had the field looking better than ever. Red, white and blue draped the gray concrete in every imaginable space.

As the day marched on, players arrived and a constant buzz of activity nested on the field. Dignitaries and stars came and went. I saw more people in the clubhouse than ever. In today's game, I don't think you would ever see access like in those days.

In one quiet moment, I walked through the dugout out on to the field. The television crews were laying cable and positioning cameras and I looked to my left and noticed an older man sitting by himself on the dugout bench.

My All-Star Experience - The Players Arrive

My days in the clubhouse reached a fever pitch about this time 34 years ago. I picked the right year to become batboy—the year Seattle hosted its first Major League All-Star Game. As the visiting clubhouse batboy, that meant that I would perform batboy duties for the National League All-Stars.

The players started filtering in a couple of days before the game. Players and their equipment would arrive at all hours of the day and night. This began a three-day stint of living in the Kingdome for me. Bags would arrive from a foreign city and team. I would look in awe at the arrival of these players from the "other" league.

How Baseball Began (in my Eyes)

Many people ask if I was a baseball fan before becoming a batboy. In fact, my earliest memory of sports was attending a New York Mets baseball game in Shea stadium. I was somewhere between three and four years old, about the same age of the Mets when I saw them. Way before the Miracle Met's of 1969. It didn't matter to me who won or lost.

Inaugral Season Schedule and Win/Loss outcome

I can still remember walking into the stadium, through the concourse and out into the stands. My eyes grew wide taking in the sheer size of the stadium and the beautiful green grass contrasting sharply with the orange clay of the infield. From that moment on, I was in awe of stadiums. You can read a bit more about that here where I talk about my experiences in theKingdome. I remember sitting at the game with a big orange, metal bar in my face. You wouldn't find that in stadiums of today! Yep, way back in 1964 during a sunny afternoon in Queens, NY, this three-year old fell in love with baseball.

Local Boy Hits it Big!

The Paparazzi was on hand during my rookie night in the Big Leagues. 

This feature came out in my local hometown newspaper. I had no idea that it was going to be such a big spread.

 

My Home Away From Home - The Kingdome

Kingdome under construction- mid '70's

You've heard of a home away from home? Well, I had one of those. It was the largest freestanding concrete structure in the world at the time—the Kingdome, built in 1976.

My family moved to Seattle from Florida in 1975. There are two things I remember most about arriving in the Pacific Northwest. The first was driving through Snoqualmie Pass and seeing real mountains for the first time. The twin sister volcanoes, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier greeted us as we approached the Cascade Range. This Florida flat-lander was 14 at the time and the mountains served promise of new adventures.