From time to time, our union steward breaks the pre-game monotony with an announcement. Usually, it’s a reminder to stay up on dues or to buy a raffle ticket for the annual vendor party. Yesterday, it was to let everyone know that one of our own - known to one and all as “Big Daddy” - had passed away. No cause of death, no visitation details.

Now, I didn’t know “Big Daddy” that well; I don’t think any of us could’ve claimed to. He was not quite there, mentally. When he used to sell beer — before someone mercifully moved him to selling programs and scorecards — he used to carry around a pocket calculator, which he’d whip out during every single sale to tabulate change.

He was short and portly, resembling physically (to me, anyway) an African American Ignatius J. Reilly, the rotund protagonist of “A Confederacy of Dunces.” When he hawked his wares, it was in a guttural tone somewhere between Captain Beefheart’s growl and Fat Albert’s joyous outbursts. And whether he was vending in the aisles or just hanging out before the game, from his mouth poured a semi-comprehensible monologue that, Tourettes-like, revolved around the phrase “Kick it out the back door, yaaayaaaahhhh!”

For instance, if he was selling hot dogs, it might have been, “Roll them doggies! Kick ‘em out the back door, yaaayaaaahhh!” Or, selling beer: “Cold beer kickin’ out the back door, yaaaahaaah!” It’s hard to render in writing, and I can’t find a photo or video anywhere online - so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Yes, Big Daddy’s howling got a little old. And no, I don’t think it helped helped him sell much product. But he was one-of-a-kind, and I know the Wrigley experience will be a little less rich in his absence.

I’ve been meaning to post this video for a minute, but I’ve lacked the technical expertise to rotate the file 90 degrees. I shot this (sideways - oops) on the Red Line at about 10:30pm after the second of Paul McCartney’s two Wrigley shows. I was in low spirits after making crap money and knowing I had to wake up in five hours to catch a plane. Needless to say, my mood shifted sharply upward after soaking up The Reverend’s good vibes.

A little background on the video: When I got on the train, there were just a handful of people in the car, including “Reverend Thomas.” I don’t know if The Reverend is actually homeless, but he was carrying with him an unseemly number of plastic bags, backpacks and duffle bags — from which he pulled an endless chain of gaudy trinkets for sale. I passed on a bedazzled faux-leather purse, a straw cowboy hat and an herbal tea set before finally dropping $10 on a Polaroid One600, which I happen to know retails for north of $150.

At some point, The Reverend started singing and I started filming. He’s hard to hear over the rumbling of the train, but the sound quality spikes at about the one-minute mark. Enjoy…and if you ever see Reverend Thomas on the train, ask him to do a little Bill Withers number.

Now, I don’t consider myself one of those people who clings reflexively to the past. I don’t run with that night-baseball-at-Wrigley-Field-is-an-abomination crowd or the a-newspaper-is-meant-to-be-held-in-one’s-hand crowd.

But if the rumors prove true that Old Style will be replaced at Wrigley Field next year by Coors Light, it will reinforce in the strongest way possible how totally bereft of identity the Cubs are. [EDIT: It would appear the break-up was initiated by Pabst, not the Cubs.]

I don’t pretend to know how these contracts work, so I wouldn’t even want to hazard a guess as to who’s the instigator here. But it’s bad enough that the top-selling beer at Wrigley is the flagship brand of the same company that owns the naming rights to our most heated rival’s stadium. If the rumors are true, the only beers available in the seats of Wrigley — i.e., excluding beers like Heineken and Corona sold at select beer stands — will be brews whose brands are inexorably linked to other baseball teams.

Add to that the fact that the closest thing to a major league icon the Cubs have is a mediocre starting pitcher with the temperament of a spoiled child, and you’ve got a franchise in desperate need of an identity. I can’t help but note the irony of the fact that this rumor bubbled to the surface on the same day Goose Island announced it will soon begin brewing its 312 “urban wheat ale” in upstate New York. 

What’s next: a CVS on every corner? Oh, wait…

Whenever I’m interviewing for a job and the subject of my shadow life as a beer vendor arises, I trot out a little cliche: “I love vending beer because I get to meet a lot of people.” Well, I have a confession: I don’t really like meeting people when I serve them beer. And when I’m slinging beer, I “meet” people in the same way a candidate for political office “meets” people on a rope line, i.e., in the fastest, most superficial way imaginable. 

I’ve been a casual admirer for a while now of the writings of Dmitry Samarov, who chronicles on his blog his life as a Chicago cab driver. Through conversations with his nightly fares, Samarov catalogs life’s simple beauties and frequent absurdity in his understated and self-deprecating style. Samarov’s interactions with his fares - at least as rendered on his blog - are intimate. They breathe.

At the ballpark, my interactions with fans are harried and lightning-fast.

Do I have the occasional interesting back-and-forth with a fan? Sure. But 9 times out of 10, one transactional conversation with a fan is indistinguishable from the next. They’re usually rote, impersonal, functional (i.e., “What can I get you?” “They’re $7 apiece.” “You’ve done this before, huh?” “Yep.” etc.).

So just for the heck of it, I’ll occasionally use this space to transcribe — through the filter of memory — the odd out-of-the-norm conversation with a fan…as an antidote, if nothing else, to the fleeting nature of all the rest of my daily interactions with fans at the park. 

The following took place during the last week or so at Wrigley Field.

NO COORS LIGHT

Me: “What can I get you?”

Leather-faced, sunburned lady: “You got any Coors Light?”

Me: “Nope. Just Bud and Bud Light.”

Lady: “So do they have Coors Light anywhere in here?”

Me: “Nope. Just Bud and Old Style, then a couple of the stands have ‘specialty’ beers like Heineken and Corona.”

Lady: “So there’s no Coors Light ANYWHERE in the ballpark?”

Me: “That’s right.”

Lady: [incomprehensible swearing, waving me away]

TIPPY-DO

Me: “What can I get you?”

30s-ish, banker-looking guy: “I’ll have a Bud Light.”

Guy’s friend, pointing to the bedraggled, mug-shot-looking picture on my Wrigley I.D.: “What happened to your hair?”

Me: “Oh, that? That’s my winter ‘do. This [taking off my hat to reveal a tidy buzz cut] is my summer ‘do.”

First guy, throwing two $1 bills in my beer tray with the tossed-off dismissiveness of someone throwing change in a bum’s cup: “Well, here’s your tippy-do.”

Me: “Uh, thanks.”

BARGAIN HUNTER

Me: “What can I get you?”

Young, well-dressed Indian guy: “I’ll take two Bud Lights.”

Me: “You bet.”

Me [pouring them]: “That’ll be $14.”

Young guy: “Will you do three for $20?”

Me: “This isn’t a flea market.”

Young guy: [stalks off without tipping]

People often ask me what the worst part about my job as a Wrigley Field beer vendor is. (“You mean, other than watching maddeningly mediocre baseball year in and year out?” I always want to ask.) For me, this is an easy one. It’s not lugging my product up and down the aisles like some 21st-century pack mule. It’s not even the drunk and sometimes staggeringly rude fans. Without question, it’s the hour-and-a-half I’m forced to spend before each game mindlessly waiting for the day’s assignment with my fellow grizzled and unwashed vendors.

Back in the “good old days” - I put this in quotation marks because the Old Guard is always pining for times gone by, when vendors allegedly made heaps of money without interference from The Man - we used to congregate before games on Waveland Avenue, near the day-of-game ticket windows across from the firehouse. But a few years back, the Cubs moved the vendors’ staging area to a gated, concrete slab around the corner on Clark Street, affectionately known as “The Cage.”

And that is where my fellow beer dudes and I spend a cramped and noisy couple of hours before each Cubs home game, waiting restlessly for our vending assignments and for fans to flood into the Friendly Confines. Since most vendors don’t have the time or inclination to chat during games, it’s here - in The Cage before games - that we do most of our socializing. 

Like any workplace, we’ve got our cliques.

There are the older, generally literate and intelligent vendors who escape the noisy cage for a carpeted locker room redolent of old man sweat and dirty socks. Here, they reminisce about the sitcoms, rock bands and sports heroes of their youths while taping up balky knees and pulling jock straps over saggy pairs of Hanes.

There are the loners, the guys who bury their heads in a book or sleep off yesterday’s hangover in a corner.

There are the younger black kids who play furtive hands of poker in a minivan parked down the street.

There are the Angry Young Men, who mill around on the sidewalk in front of The Cage raging against everything - the fans who don’t tip, the union steward who won’t give them a beer card or the guidance counselor who failed to steer them toward a less degrading life.

And then there’s a second clique of older vendors, mainly Jewish, who sell exclusively in the upper deck and gravitate around a couple of bosom buddies, Les and “Fish.”

For some reason, I’m the only vendor under 35 who’s been inducted into this clan of congenial old-timers, and it’s to them I usually turn to pass the time.

Among their ranks is Howie, a good-natured member of the clique who telegraphs his obvious bi-curiosity (he’s about 60 and married with kids) with his constant jokes about proctological exams and his odd daily greeting of ‘Hey, where are the Butt Brothers?” - a definitely-not-funny-now-if-it-ever-even-was reference to Les and Fish.

(“You know where they are, Howie,” I always want to scream. “I just watched you walk up to The Cage with them.”)

I’ve known all these guys for years, but I only just learned that Howie was a year behind Les and Fish in grade school, somewhere on the South Side in the 1950s, and that he was known then as Crazylegs Hirsch — a reference to a long-forgotten Jewish footballer famous for his spastic gait.

Occasionally, the pre-game monotony will be interrupted by a special announcement from our union steward, Richie, who if you closed your eyes and listened to him talk you’d swear you were hearing our dearly beloved Mare Daley. These speeches are usually reminders to sign up to work special events - say, a NASCAR race at Toyota Park or a soccer game at Soldier Field - or exhortations to make a small donation to the union’s political action arm.

But one day not too long ago, Richie’s pre-game speech was of a darker hue. A vendor named Big Bobby, a soft-spoken walking mountain with arms covered in scars of indeterminate origin (fire? drug use? childhood trauma?), had passed away unexpectedly. His family lived out of town and didn’t have the money to get to Chicago to claim the body, let alone to give him a proper burial. Within a couple of days, the vendors - a notoriously stingy and individualistic lot - had collected enough beer-stained fives and tens to pay for Bobby’s cremation and roundtrip bus fare for a family member to retrieve his earthly remains.

The episode was a sobering reminder that many from our ranks live dangerously close to the edge, with no pension, no health insurance and small room for error. It was also a kick in the nuts to your faithful diarist, who maybe doesn’t have as much cause as he thinks to bitch and whine about the inevitable ups and downs of being a Wrigley Beer Man.

As a lifelong Cubs fan and long-time Wrigley vendor, I’ve had the opportunity to study Cardinals fans with the dispassionate eye of an anthropologist in the field. From my vantage, their three most salient traits are that they (1) clothe themselves from the waist up exclusively in red, (2) don’t tip and (3) can be counted on to pack the Friendly Confines whenever the Red Birds pass through Chicago.

At least that used to be the case. To wit:

40,496

41,034

37,975

These are the average attendance figures for the Cardinals’ three 2010 swings through Chicago. The average attendance for the just-completed three-game set this week: 33,749. That’s a 15% drop-off.

Now, the fact that attendance is down at Wrigley Field (and ballparks across the country) isn’t exactly news. But as a vendor, it’s hard to believe the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry — even as one-sided as it’s been for the past decade — has lost so much of its luster. As recently as last season, vendors could pencil in big sales figures for each of the season’s Cubs-Cardinals match-ups. Last year, I averaged sales of almost 11 cases of beer for the season series. For the Tuesday and Wednesday night meetings this week, I averaged six. 

But the diminished sales don’t tell the whole story. Time was, the vibe inside the park during a Cubs-Cardinals game was electric. When the crowd roared after a pivotal play, you’d have to look up to see which team had made it, so numerous and raucous were both teams’ fans. This week, whole rows of seats sat empty, while the mood of the few fans that were there was palpably disinterested.

Will it get better? On Tuesday, fans had to choose between coming out to the ballpark or staying home to watch the Bulls play a pivotal game five against the Atlanta Hawks. Then on Wednesday night, the threat of rain may have scared a few people away. But if the Cubs are still drawing in the low-30s for their August series against the Cardinals, it’ll be safe to say the Golden Age — for Wrigley Field along with its vendors — has passed.

Whenever people find out I’m a beer vendor, they invariably have a lot of questions about the art, science and metaphysics of the job.  So here, I present an imaginary Q&A with a real-life beer vendor.

Q: How did you get the job?

A: I applied.

Q: So does that mean I could sign up to be a vendor?

A: Probably not. Vending is sort of a microcosm of the American economy: The aging, middle-management types cling to their jobs like tree branches in a flood, leaving the next generation to fight for their scraps and wait their turn. Since vending is a relatively plush gig, retirements are rare. Levi Restaurants, which holds the concessions contract at Wrigley, stopped making new hires two or three years ago.

Q: That’s a bummer. So how does it work? Do you get paid by the hour?

A: No. We get paid a commission on every sale, plus tips.

Q: Wait - you’re supposed to tip the beer guy?

A: Duh. You tip the guy at your local bar $1 for twisting the cap off your Bud Light and handing it to you. Is that really worth more than a guy hauling a case of beer right to your seat and pouring it into a cup for you?

Q: I guess you’re right. So how much do you make a game?

A: Now you’re getting personal. How much do you make?

Q: OK, relax. Do you have to work every game?

A: No. We’re free to work whenever we choose.

Q: So how do you decide what you sell and where?

A: Assignments are doled out based on union seniority — or, in some cases, nepotism. If you walk north from Wrigley on Clark Street an hour and a half before a Cubs home game, you’ll see 100-odd vendors milling about waiting to get their assignment cards.

Q: What are the best and worst items to sell?

A: Best? Budweiser/Bud Light in the bleachers, hands down. Worst? That depends on the weather. Cotton candy, cracker jacks and ice cream are usually in the running.

Q: Do you get to watch the games?

A: Not really. I mean, I could if I wanted to. Not to sound cynical, but I’m not there to enjoy myself. I’m there to make money.

Q: So how much do you make a game? $100? $200?

A: You already asked me that, pal.

Q: OK, OK. Have you ever sold a beer to Bill Murray?

A: Come on, son. Bill doesn’t sit in the seats with the commoners. When he’s at the game, he’s in a luxury box.

Q: What about other celebrities?

A: That depends on your definition of celebrity. Does the roadie for the Melvins count?

Q: Uh, no. So what’s the deal with that vendor who looks like Scottie Pippen?

A: What don’t you understand? He’s a dude who happens to look like Scottie Pippen. His real name is Claude.

Q: What’s the most memorable Cubs game you’ve ever worked?

A: Well, since it’s the Cubs, there aren’t that many to choose from. In my memory, it’s a rare Saturday night game in 1998, where Sammy Sosa hit three home runs, Glenallen Hill hit one that landed on the porch of the old Pink House across Waveland Avenue, and Kerry Wood homered just for good measure. But after obsessively scouring the box scores from 1998 on baseball-reference.com , I’ve concluded that the game I’m imagining is actually a montage of several games from that season.

Q: Were you at the “Bartman” game? 

A: Yep.

Q: So, uh, can you get me tickets?

A: Only by walking up to the box office during normal business hours, same as you.

“Living the dream.” It’s a phrase overused amongst us beer vendors, mainly because it can be used to express such a wide range of emotions. It can denote euphoria, the type experienced after making a killing on a sun-kissed August afternoon against the Cardinals. Or it can denote dejection, as when uttered sarcastically while schlepping up and down the stairs during a meaningless Cubs-Pirates game in September.

But truth be told, whether we like to admit it or not, us vendors have been living the dream for years now. For as long as I’ve been vending, Cubs fans and tourists alike have filled Wrigley’s seats by the thousands, armed with piles of crisp twenties, limitless stores of optimism and a seemingly endless capacity for self-delusion.

But could it all be coming to an end? The season is only five days old, and already there’s a mounting body of evidence that Cubs fans’ tolerance of mediocre baseball is, in fact, finite. First, there are the objective measures. According to the Trib, Monday’s announced crowd of 26,292 was the Cubs’ lowest in almost a decade. (Keep in mind, the actual attendance was maybe half that.) And the secondary ticket market, always a good measure of fan enthusiasm, is reportedly down 20 to 30 percent.

And then there’s the anecdotal evidence. On opening day, usually a time for Cubs fans to engage in harmless daydreams of post-season glory to come, I heard a level of cynicism and resignation usually reserved  for September. When Ryan Dempster coughed up a two-out, fifth-inning grand slam to Pirates second baseman Neil Walker, you’d have thought the Cubs had gone down 20-2 instead of just 4-2.

But wait - there’s hope! Whet Moser, Chicago Magazine’s level-headed scribe, torpedoes the doom and gloom with figures that suggest the Cubs’ brand is as strong as ever. The Cubs are one of only two teams (the other being the Yankees) to finish in the top five in combined home and road attendance in each of the last 10 seasons. In other words, whether inside the Friendly Confines or out, the Cubs remain one of the most popular franchises in MLB.

But if the temperature climbs past 80 and tickets scalpers are still selling box seats for 50 cents on the dollar, I’ll know the dream is finally at an end.

I’m all for using social media to promote your real-world endeavors, but this is just stupid. A beer vendor lives and dies by his ability to be efficient — whether it’s buying all his beer in advance so he doesn’t have to wait in line between every case or perfecting the iconic ‘double pour.’ But this knucklehead Safeco Field vendor — who, we’re told, considers himself “a smarter beer vendor” — is rolling out a plan to take beer orders via Twitter. 

So while smarter-than-your-average-bear Kevin Zelko is logging into Twitter to check on his orders, fellow Safeco Field vendors (i.e., “the competition”) will be, you know, actually selling beer. And what’s Zelko going to do when he’s in Section 201 when a fan tweets him from section 249, a scant 48 aisles away? He speculates that his social media-savvy customers will be better-than-average tippers…because we all know nothing puts a tipsy baseball fan in a charitable mood quite like waiting two innings for his next beer.

Me? I’ll stick to methodically lugging my beer up and down the aisles like the luddite I guess I am.