Q & A Session: Pat Phelan

AP: How did you first get on the track to be a clubhouse manager?

P-Twice: I grew up in North Carolina and my brother worked for the Durham Bulls. The clubhouse manager there came into the store and talked to my brother and said he needed a bat boy. I was 14 at the time. He said great and I came in and talked to Jose (Bulls clubhouse manager) and the rest was history. I ended up getting hired there as a bat boy and worked in Durham for about six years.

AP: Was it just being a bat boy or also working in the clubhouse too?

P-Twice: It was all of it. I was a bat boy and basically another assistant there. In the summertime I was there from noon to one in the morning. I never had a car, my mom would always come pick me up.

We lived a half hour from the stadium so, my mom would always be hanging outside waiting for me to get out of work at one o'clock in the morning. Even if it was a school night, didn't matter.

AP: Wow, that's serious dedication...

P-Twice: Yeah, my last two years I had graduated high school and my family moved to Jacksonville. I had come back and I didn't have a car. Colin, who was the Durham clubhouse manager at the time, picked me up on the way back from Spring Training one year and then another year I had a buddy come pick me up from my house in Jacksonville. I went and lived on my boss' couch for two years and it looked like it was a terrible choice that I was going back to bat boy and live out of suitcases, but it was what I wanted to do. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do.

AP: When did you know?

P-Twice: Very, very early on. My first year as a bat boy I was kind of getting in the swing of things and I had no idea what it was like. You don't think about the face that players' shoes get cleaned and there's laundry that needs to be done. When I came back for my second year, I was just having a lot of fun. There's no better high school job.

I had a boss that was like a brother to me and I knew right then this is what I wanted to do. I always thought I'd go to college, I was in all the smart kid classes in highs school, but once I started working the clubhouse I knew I'll never get out of baseball.

AP: What about it do you like so much?

P-Twice: Being in with the guys. It's definitely a different atmosphere. There's a lot of joking going on and nothing is really off limits. Growing up I was the youngest of five boys, so I've kind of been bred to be around guys (laughs). Everybody's great and you have 30 coworkers who are just awesome guys that you can talk about anything with. You get your job done, but beyond that you're your own boss and you get to just hang out and be a family.

AP: Did you play baseball as a kid?

P-Twice: I played baseball religiously growing up, I mean I did nothing but play baseball. Once I started working with the Bulls freshman year of high school, I wanted to be the kid that was there every day. I had kind of gotten burnt out from playing baseball so much and it kind of came at the perfect time in my life. I was switching out from being burnt out from playing to doing something I really liked.

AP: When did you first start working for the Stone Crabs?

P-Twice: I've been here since last year, so this is my second year. The year before that I was with Bowling Green, and in 2008 I was with the Columbus Catfish, which was the Rays Low-A team before they moved to Bowling Green. And I actually got that job because it was a month before Spring Training and I had heard that there was a job opening and I knew the trainer Mark Vincent and I texted him saying, "Hey, if you don't mind asking if that job's still open, I think I'd be interested."

I bat-boyed until I was 20 years old. A lot of the time I was older than the guys on the team. I used to get jokes about being the bat boy with a beard, but Tim McKechney (Rays minor league equipment manager) got in touch with my boss from Durham and he ended up calling me and interviewing me over the phone. I knew all my bosses and coaches that have come through since I was 14 years old, so I definitely had an edge.

AP: How do you work your way up? Is it that somebody at the top of the Rays operations sees you've done a good job and says "Time to go to the next level"?

P-Twice: Yeah, that's the funny thing is that it's pretty much just like players in some sense. Some guys like to work certain places because that's where home is. For me, I've traveled around and then you mix in all the time you work in Spring Training, but it is just like players. They notice what you do and what people say about you and if there's an opening you move up.

AP: So what's the next step for you?

P-Twice: I really enjoy working here. I couldn't ask for anything more and I also get to do the visitors side, which a lot of places don't let you run both clubhouses. Who knows? If there's an opening that sounds right in Montgomery or something happens where maybe a Durham becomes available, I'd love to go back. There's always opportunities somewhere in the big leagues and just right place, right time if really what it is. People have to like you and you have to just know the right people.

AP: Would you ever leave the Rays organization?

P-Twice: Not ideally, I love it here. I've never heard anybody say a negative thing about being here. There might be people who maybe take it for granted because they don't realize what they have here, but this is a top-of-the-line organization. It's very well run, they put everything into their minor leagues. I'm proud to work here. Then again, if there was an opportunity with a different organization I'd welcome that, but ideally I'd like to stay here and work my way up here.