Connecticut Defenders' Clubhouse Guy Swinging For The Fences
Joe Tarnowski would love to make it to the majors
By Brian Hallenbeck Published on 8/11/2008
Norwich - At Dodd Stadium, just about everybody's looking to move up. Or get back.
Joe Tarnowski, the Connecticut Defenders' clubhouse guy, is no exception.
Like some of the players, coaches and front-office types who toil for the minor league team, Tarnowski's had a taste of the “bigs,” and wouldn't mind a return engagement.
His ticket won't be a cut fastball, though, or a bat with pop in it. No, it'll be his reputation for catering to the players' every need, for keeping them well fed, their towels and uniforms clean, their supply of bats stocked.
”He's one of the hardest-working guys at the ballpark,” says Brian Irizarry, the Defenders' director of media relations.
”The best I've seen,” says Nate Bump, a pitcher who's witnessed more than a few “clubbies” in action during his nine professional seasons, including three in the major leagues with the Florida Marlins.
“I try to run it like a major league clubhouse,” the 47-year-old Tarnowski says of his Dodd domain. “I put as much effort into it as I did into the major league jobs I had.”
Tarnowski, who graduated from Colchester's Bacon Academy in 1979 - Ron Wotus, the San Francisco Giants' bench coach, was a classmate - started working for the New York Mets in 1983, and three years later became clubhouse and equipment manager at the organization's minor league complex in Florida.
In 2006, he took over as the Colorado Rockies' visiting clubhouse manager, one of 60 such jobs on the major league level (each of the 30 teams has home and visiting clubhouse managers).
In 2007, Tarnowski returned to Colchester to help care for his ill mother, who died last September. While attending the Eastern League All-Star Game at Dodd, he reconnected with Bob Stanley, the Defenders' pitching coach, whom he met when both were with the Mets.
”Steamer (Stanley) called me the next morning at the restaurant where I was working and asked if I could help out,” Tarnowski recalls. “I was supposed to fill in for three days. ... Well, I'm still here.”
And the Defenders are lucky to have him, most everyone around the team agrees.
”It's one of the toughest jobs to fill at the ballpark,” Charlie Dowd, the Defenders' general manager, says. “The quality he's given us in that position is so far beyond what we've ever experienced.
”I liken him to 'The Scrounger' in 'The Great Escape,' “ Dowd says, invoking the character James Garner played in the classic prisoner-of-war movie. “He makes relationships in town; he knows where to find things, he knows the right people.”
Tarnowski might never have been a clubhouse guy if he'd been a little taller. After high school, he umpired locally and then attended the Joe Brinkman Umpire School in Cocoa, Fla.
”There were 125 guys who graduated from the school, and 12 of them got (umpiring) jobs,” the 5-foot-6 Tarnowski says. “They told me my work was fine, but that I was too short.”
The day after umpire school ended, Tarnowski and four others took clubhouse jobs with the Mets. Within three weeks, he was the only one left. He's always liked being around the game and the ballpark, he says, and that has made the long hours tolerable.
On a typical weekday, when the Defenders are scheduled to play a night game at Dodd, Tarnowski leaves home at 9:30 a.m. He might not get home until 2:30 or 3 the next morning.
He runs errands on his way in, shopping for groceries and supplies and perhaps picking up a uniform that a seamstress has repaired. He arrives at the stadium around noon, prepares a pre-game meal for the players and readies equipment for batting practice.
Around mid-afternoon, Bien Figueroa, the Defenders' manager, drops off his lineup card for the game on Tarnowski's desk. Tarnowski takes it to the visitor's clubhouse. Before the game begins, he'll deliver six dozen balls to the umpires, who will scuff them up with mud. The previous night, Tarnowski had to rub up two dozen more when the umps ran out.
With the game under way, Tarnowski and his helpers - friends he's known since high school in some cases - start the laundry. The washers and dryers won't stop spinning until early the next morning, once the uniforms worn tonight are done.
Tarnowski's crew vacuums the clubhouse and puts out the post-game meal, which Tarnowski's arranged with local caterers, primarily Irene's Restaurant in Norwich and the Thames Valley Council for Community Action.
After the game, it takes four to five hours to finish cleaning up.
”The hardest part is the food,” Tarnowski says. “When I started, you got a cup of soup and some vegetables. Then, in the '90s, it was sandwiches. Now, it's got to be a hot meal. Last night, we had prime rib. We've got pork loin and a taco bar coming up.
”It tastes better when we win.”
***Like Joe Perez's Norwich Bulletin profile of our beloved batboy Jered Allen, this is a pretty interesting story about some of the inner workings of the team. This NL Day article was front page above the fold.
