The downside is fans of the Bakersfield Blaze have stopped cheering. The upside is they are clapping even louder.
The noise is due to the clapper, a trendy piece of plastic that claps louder than a normal person could. Fans feel no discomfort and make more noise.
“I thought it was a good thing to have,” Phyllis Waldo said. “They help us make noise and they pick it up on the radio.”
Waldo has been the president of the Blaze Booster Club for two years. Although fans constantly come up to “the lady in the blue shirt,” as she is referred to by some customers, most don’t even ask why she is selling clappers.
“We make money,” she said.
Selling these red and yellow clappers has become a fund-raiser for the Booster Club. Waldo orders a hundred of them to sell at each game and she sells them for $4 a piece, making a maximum of $400 a game.
The money raised is used to purchase plaques for all players and coaches that are employed by the Tamp Bay Devil Rags, which owns the Blaze. Being a nonprofit organization, the club uses the leftover money to pay for the meals of the players, their wives and the coaches at its annual banquet.
The Booster Club, which has been active for more than 15 years, has two main purposes: to support the Blaze and professional baseball in Bakersfield. Members have made it their responsibility to find homes for the players to stay in.
Every year, the club holds a meal to welcome team players. Each player has to pick an Easter egg from a basket to determine which Booster member he will stay with.
“We’ve kind of become a home away from home,” Waldo said.
Waldo has “adopted” shortstop Jace Brewer. She said members of the club will usually celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and Father’s Day with the players and their families. She recently celebrated with Brewer after hearing the news that his wife is pregnant with their first child.
Jennie Willingham is the treasurer of the club, and she and her husband enjoy adopting the players. They make meals, celebrate their lives, and most importantly, share their memories together.
“It’s fun and the guys are super nice,” she said. “We’re making a scrapbook. We put a lot of time and money into it. I put in so much time, I usually take up two books.”
But some members of the club, like Mary Elizabeth Davis, join just to know what’s going on in the community. Davis is an inactive Booster member; she only joined to learn of the steps that were going toward building a bigger ballpark. She later learned that plans for the new ball park were scrapped.
“The money fell through,” she said.
Although the first game in Bakersfield after the Blaze’s season break only had about 300 people in the stands, the people who do show up are lovers of the sport.
“We are fans of baseball and it’s a fairly inexpensive entertainment,” Waldo said.
Officers of the club are Phyllis Waldo, president; Sandra Broughton, vice president; Sally Hulse, secretary; and Jennie Willingham, treasurer.