Eric Oliver goes from teaching and coaching to taking care of Cedar Rapids Kernels

CEDAR RAPIDS — Tucked away in the bowels of Veterans Memorial Stadium is the equipment room. You have to know where you're going to find it.

In the meticulously organized room are things like plastic shelves of extra uniform tops and pants, and bats just shipped from the manufacturer that haven't even had the plastic wrapping removed from them, yet. You see boxes and boxes of baseballs.

Then on one bare wall is something interesting that Cedar Rapids Kernels equipment manager Eric Oliver is eager to show you. On the light brown paint are signatures in black Sharpie ink.

Kernels Manager Jake Mauer and Minnesota Twins General Manager Terry Ryan have scribbled their names there, as have guys like Twins farm director Brad Steil, roving pitching instructor Eric Rasmussen and roving infield and baserunning instructor Sam Perlozzo. It's Oliver's little personal wall of fame.

Every coach, every rover, every special guest from the Twins is asked to add their autograph.

'Everybody, when I run them back here, says 'Cool, thanks for asking me,'' Oliver said. 'Some of them are characters. Rasmussen is a character. Sam Perlozzo is a consummate professional, being a former big-league manager and everything. I make it my business to know who these people are and what their jobs are.'

Getting Oliver to stand still for any length of time is a frivolous endeavor. There are few that have the Cedar Rapids man's energy.

Even when he's being interviewed for a story, he's moving around here and there. It's part of what makes him the ideal 'clubbie.'

'This year, being my second year, has been so much smoother,' he said. 'I've tried to be more organized. Last year, I had to learn everything. There was no textbook, no one helping ... Once you get a feel for it, it goes pretty smoothly. But it's really go, go, go all day long.'

Which suits Oliver, 56, well. He was a longtime middle-school teacher and coach in town who took early retirement in the spring of 2014.

It was an offer, with the promise of future healthcare, he simply couldn't pass up. Looking for a post-education job, he contacted the Kernels, whom he had e-mailed about the clubhouse manager's position a few years earlier.

At the time, they told him it wasn't possible to hold both a day job and that one. He found out why.

His duties are extensive, enough to get him to the ballpark between 8 and 10 a.m. for home games. He'll usually leave Veterans Memorial Stadium by 11:30 p.m., depending on the length of the game.

What does he do? Just about everything, sans laundry. That's the famous Ron 'Roady' Plein's job.

Oliver is in charge of equipment and uniforms, the general cleanliness of the home and visitor's clubhouses, making sure the pregame and postgame food spreads are ready. He hand delivers meals to Mauer and the coaching staff after every game.

On this particular day, the game umpires phoned him for directions to the stadium. On the floor of the equipment room were belongings of two players assigned elsewhere earlier that day by the Twins that Oliver had to make sure got sent to them at their new addresses.

If you're not a multi-tasker, you can't be a good clubbie.

'I guess I pride myself on taking care of the players, which is my number one job,' Oliver said. 'The last thing Terry Ryan said before he left, after we had lost in the playoffs last year, he shook my hand and said 'Keep taking great care of our players.' When a general manager of a major league organization treats you that kind, it makes you feel great.'

Oliver's salary comes primarily via monthly dues players and coaches are required to pay. The average minor leaguer's salary at the low-Class A level isn't much, usually under $1,000 a month after taxes.

You get the impression that if they could afford it, everyone would pay much more to reward Oliver for what he does for them. It was so striking the day the team arrived from spring training in early April that he had every individual locker filled with an appropriate amount of hangers, every soap and shampoo dispenser in the shower area filled, and razors and shaving cream neatly lined up along the sinks.

He had recently purchased and installed a Minnesota Twins shower curtain for Mauer's office. Anything for the guys.

'Eric's the best, and it's because he truly cares,' Mauer said. 'He takes pride in what he's doing. He makes it really easy to come to the ballpark every day. He is pleasant to be around, always in a good mood. He's energetic. This is saying something, but Eric is the best clubbie I've been around in my 15 years in pro ball. He's on top of it. Yeah, Eric's the best.'

'I'll tell you right now that Eric is the best clubbie in the system,' Kernels pitcher Randy LeBlanc agreed. 'There's not even a question. You ask any one of these guys in here, everybody loves Eric. What makes him a good clubbie? He just takes care of us. He's a good guy that takes care of us. That's all that matters.'

Oliver seems to know just about everything about everyone, and that's in a good way. He pointed out to a reporter recently how Kernels pitcher Cody Stashak is engaged to a woman who just took a job out of college with KWWL-TV in Waterloo.

He's in the dugout during most games, rooting on the team and chatting up players. If someone breaks a bat, he'll immediately run back to the equipment room to retrieve a replacment and put it in the bat bin.

'I'm not a go-fer,' he said. 'The first thing I tell them is 'If you think you're going to hand me a five-dollar bill, and I'm going to run to McDonald's for you, you're wrong.' I tell them that the first day. I'm not chasing tips here. I feel like if I do my job in here, that makes their job easier out there ... I'm as serious about my job in here as they should be about their jobs out there.'

They realize and appreciate that.

'You need somebody who is a nice guy, a genuine person like he is. That's all you need,' LeBlanc said. 'Everybody loves him here. Anything we ask, he does. He is the man, for sure.'

'The Twins want to be here for a long time,' Mauer said. 'It's a good place to be. Not only logistically from Minneapolis, but also, too, it's the facility, the (playing) surface, the fan support, everything. It's first class. Eric is right in line with everything that makes this place attractive.'

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