A winter meeting story

Here is the story of my first Baseball Winter Meeting that I mentioned last night:

Back in the fall of 1993, I was between jobs. Bartending at two different bars in my hometown was good money, but I needed to try and get into baseball.

Through a sports job service (that is no longer in business and never got me a job), I heard about the possibility of going to the Winter Meetings in Atlanta for a job fair. After checking it out with a guy I knew from UW-Platteville, Tim Bawmann. Tim was in the Florida State League at the time and he is the GM at Lowell now. After that conversation, I registered for the job fair, got a cheap flight on Midwest Express from my flight attendant cousins, and headed out with a pack of resumes and a stack of cassettes.

It was a bit overwhelming once I got down there. The job service had a little seminar on the first day down there about what to expect and what to look for in a job. Then, they mentioned The Big Board (more on that in a bit) and split us into groups.

There had to be about 150 guys who were interested in getting a radio job who split off into a room.

The host got up in front of us and said something along the lines of: Wow, that's a lot of guys looking for maybe three jobs.

We laughed, not knowing any better. Then, we all realized that he was serious.

The Big Board was a room with many large bulletin boards. Teams post job openings on the boards and prospective employees put their resumes (and tapes if they have to) into envelopes on the board. You had to write your room number on the resume so that someone could get in touch with you if they wanted to interview you. (Give me a break. Cell phones cost about $4,000 at the time).

That first day I walked in right when the job fair opened. There were ticket positions, internships, sales openings. But, seriously, there were three radio openings. I still remember what they were: Boise Hawks, Yakima Bears, and Columbus Red Stixx.

Technically, there was a fourth opening. But, it was for the Medicine Hat Blue Jays and only Canadians could apply. I thought being from Wisconsin was close enough. Suprisingly, I never heard from the Medicine Hat Blue Jays.

I also never heard from the Hawks, Bears, or Red Stixx -- at least not when I was in Atlanta.

The rest of the time was spent hanging around the job fair with a briefcase full of tapes and resumes waiting to hear of any new openings.

There was another UW-Platteville alum down in Atlanta. His name was Kevin Temperly and at the time he was the general manager of the Clinton LumberKings. They had just made the nickname switch from Clinton Giants. He mentioned the possibility of a PA Announcer/intern for the summer of 1994. I was kind of interested, but thought that I would look around a bit more.

About two days into the meetings, a job opening was announced that I was very interested in getting. It was the play-by-play announcer for the Beloit Brewers. Yep, I flew all the way to Atlanta for an interview with a team that is less than an hour from where I grew up.

I interviewed with the GM Steve Kretz. I thought it went well. He wanted me to give him a call when I got back to Wisconsin to see how things were going.

Saturday was spent watching a Falcons-49ers game at the hotel sports bar and trying to scrounge around for jobs. I managed to meet up with the speaker from the seminar on the first day and he took my tape and resume. Funny. Never heard from him.

Sunday was a day that I got to walk through the trade show. That was...weird.

That night, the Packers played the Chargers and I watched the game in the hotel sports bar. That's where I ran into Kevin again. We talked for a bit and he suggested that I swing by Clinton to check out the Riverview Stadium during the off-season and to give him a call to try and set up an interview. The Packers won 20-13.

Monday was the flight home. The rejection letters from Boise, Yakima, and Columbus arrived over the next couple of weeks. I still have them. I'm pretty sure that I still have every rejection letter I've ever received in a shoe box somewhere in the basement.

Many calls were placed to Beloit, but I kept getting the, "We aren't ready to make a decision yet." line.

After Christmas I drove to Clinton without calling. Wanted to check it out before I went there for any kind of interview.

The ride down was okay. I had lunch at a Country Kitchen, then drove by the stadium and around town. Thought about things for a bit. Then, turned for home. That's when it started snowing. Blizzard actually. The drive back was not okay.

End of the story is that the Beloit job didn't turn out, I didn't go after the internship in Clinton, and things kind of worked out to where they are right now.