Every spring, a colorful flock of itinerant beer vendors migrates to Cactus League ballparks – and flies away again come summer.
“Attaboy!”
Scooter the Beerguy shouts encouragement to a customer after selling another frosty cold beer during an Arizona Diamondbacks spring training game at Salt River Fields. In one silky-smooth, practiced motion, the vendor flips open a beer bottle and plucks the cap out of mid-air – a trademark move that many regulars in these premium seats behind home plate have come to expect and enjoy, along with Scooter’s reliably upbeat personality, steel-trap memory for names and speedy sprints up and down the aisles.
The beloved Seattle-based vendor – who declines to offer his real name – is part of a colorful fraternal order of beer vendors who follow Major League Baseball teams to the Valley every spring seeking their part of the Cactus League’s estimated $800 million in annual economic impact. The most dynamic among them elevate carny hawking salesmanship to an art form, crafting elaborate alter egos with trademark catch-phrases, and building tidy cult followings.
“The Phoenix area is a mecca for beer vendors,” says Scooter, a 20-year Cactus League veteran who works Seattle Mariners games during the regular season. “[Spring training] creates a supply and demand issue for the ballparks. With 15 teams and 10 parks, they need experienced vendors to come in and get the job done and we’re darn good at it.” He estimates that 20 to 25 percent of the more than 200 vendors working spring training games in the Valley come from out of town.
By food service standards, vendors can make quite a chunk of change hawking refreshing beverages for three hours – upwards of $400 a game, by some accounts. And they can also parlay their celebrity into other revenue streams. “Mark the Beer Guy” Carlson – a towering 6-foot-7 fixture at Chicago Cubs spring training games since 1994 – has appeared in television commercials for the MLB TV network and has been handing out autographed copies of his beer-vendor baseball cards to his regular customers since 2001.
A Minneapolis resident who works Minnesota Twins games during the regular season, Carlson also owns a commercial and residential window cleaning business, which he takes with him to the Valley from January to March. “I started my window cleaning business in ‘95 and found that some of my customers in Minnesota were also going to Arizona for the spring,” says Carlson, who rents a furnished condo in Fountain Hills while he’s in town.
The most successful, in-demand vendors expend much creative energy perfecting their personas. “[He’s] a character based on what I thought the ideal beer vendor would be like,” Scooter the Beerguy says, adding that the name is derived from a childhood resemblance and shared playing position with famed New York Yankees shortstop Phil “the Scooter” Rizzuto.
Sharing the aisles at Salt River Fields with Scooter is Brent “Earthman” Doeden, an out-of-this-world-looking space-age hippie from Denver, easily recognizable by his gray Fu Manchu mustache, peanut earrings, and cap with a baseball bat apparently going through his head, adorned with a variety of toys and pins including green plastic aliens. He claims to be visiting from the Orion Nebula of the Milky Way galaxy.
Earthman invented his vending persona shortly after entering the profession at Denver Broncos football games in 1986. “I started decorating my hat with little plastic aliens and passing them out to children and telling them stories about the mothership. If I get them listening to me now, they might buy beer from me later.”
“It scared the hell out of me but it was such an adrenaline rush I couldn’t stop,” he continues. “When you get recognized outside of the stadium for what you do, it’s pretty cool. It’s like an addiction.”
Earthman’s celebrity buzz developed so rapidly that Scooter began serving as his agent. The duo – who first worked together in the mid-1990s at Mile High Stadium and Coors Field in Denver – even market Earthman T-shirts and appearance services through a website (earthman.rocks). Proceeds are donated to the Earthman Cares Foundation benefitting the Wounded Warriors Project and the RICK Foundation, established to preserve the legacy of Rick the Peanut Man, a legendary Seattle peanut vendor.
“He [Rick] was as much a part of the ballpark as home plate itself. ,” Scooter says. “He [worked] Mariners’ Cactus League games in Peoria. The foundation is set up…for underprivileged kids in Rick’s home town.”
Still, for 30 days every March, the Valley is home for baseball’s elite professional vendors – as for the players, a necessary starting point for the long season ahead.
“Spring training is my New Year. It’s everything,” Earthman says. “With day/night doubleheaders, I can work 36 games in 30 days. When I get any down time, I’m usually just recuperating and recovering. I had my knee replaced a year ago last October, so I’ve got to warm up the knee again and get it ready for the upcoming season.”
