Clubhouse Confidential: A Day in the Life of a Clubbie

Danny Helmer takes one last look at the clubhouse locker room - carpet vacuumed, Naturals uniforms hanging neatly in lockers, laundry bins empty and declares, "It's time to go home."

The life of a clubhouse manager can be very long and stressful days.  Helmer, entering his first season as the Northwest Arkansas Naturals' clubhouse manager, begins his day usually around 9-10 A.M.

Helmer has a regular routine of what needs to be done throughout a game day.  He begins his day by finishing up any laundry left over from the previous night and hanging up laundry loops in lockers.  In the meantime, while waiting for the laundry to get done, Helmer will spend that time in the umpires' locker room where he cleans up and hangs up any clothes or equipment.  After that, he then heads up to the front office to see if any mail has arrived for the players, which he later distributes.  He'll then head back down to the coaches' office to make sure it is clean, laundry is hung up and that they have the proper amount of snacks and drinks. 

Around 1-3 P.M. is when the day starts getting busy for Helmer because that's when the players begin to arrive at the ballpark.  Helmer says, "This is the time you usually see me running around the clubhouse."  His first priority is to make sure that the players are taken care of and if a player is in need of anything, he is always there to help them.  Around 2-3 P.M. is when he starts getting things prepared for early batting practice.  He makes sure players have their batting practice gear and that the water coolers are ready to go in the dugout.  Around 4 P.M. while the team is taking batting practice, Helmer will head off to the kitchen area, where he makes sure that players have a warm meal and enough snacks and drinks.  Pre-game meal usually consists of meatballs, pasta, chicken ravioli, or barbeque.  Once batting practice is over and the players are properly fed, it's time for Helmer to head back to the laundry room.  He gathers up all the laundry from batting practice and makes sure the first load is in an hour before game time.  While waiting for the players' laundry, he then takes the player ticket pass list to the ticket office, so that players' families and friends will have the proper amount of tickets for that night's game.

Once the game starts, Helmer is still hard at work inside the clubhouse.  Helmer uses that time to hang up laundry, clean up the locker room area, and make sure the kitchen area is stocked with food and drinks.  If the players are in need of anything during the game, he has to be ready and alert at all times.  As the end of the game nears, Helmer either has the post-game meal delivered or goes to pick it up.  Once the meal has arrived, he then sets it up and makes sure the players have everything they need.  Once the players have eaten and showered, post-game laundry begins.  The post-game laundry usually consists of game day uniforms.  Once the last player has left the locker room area, Helmer begins with one last clean-up of the locker room.  Two hours after the game had ended and all of his duties are done, Danny Helmer can officially call it a day and head for home, knowing tomorrow he will do it all over again.