The 1977 Arlington Stadium Concession All-Stars

Have you ever sat there in the evening heat of Arlington Sta-dium and felt sorry for that poor kid lugging those heavy buckets of beer up and down the stands? Or for that poor girl who has to parade back and forth all night long screaming “Peanuts . . . Fresh roasted peanuts . . . ” Well, worry no more. They’re doing just fine, thank you.

Don’t worry about Doug Stone. Doug is the top beer vendor at Arlington Stadium this season. In a 17-game period recently, Doug poured $4,381.50 worth of brew. Figure it this way: On every 75￠ bottle, Doug gets approximately 15% or almost 11￠ a bottle. Figuring in tips (he says he averages about $7 a night) and his 4-hour work day, Doug is raking in over 11 bucks an hour. A steelworker should be so lucky. Over the course of the full season, Doug “I Never Miss A Game” Stone figures to pour over 27,000 bottles of beer and pocket over $3,600 – not bad for a part time summer job.

What’s the secret, Doug? “Well, each run I make I have to carry 10 Coors, 10 Schlitz, and 10 Lone Stars. I can’t go back until all 30 are gone. Everybody wants Coors, then Schlitz. Lone Star is the hard stuff to get rid of. So I try to get rid of it first. If somebody just asks for ’three beers,’ I pop three Lone Stars before they can say Coors. Just a little trick I picked up from the older vendors.”

Don’t worry about Jeanne Arlington. Jeanne works the outfield grandstands, the proverbial peanut gallery. Jeanne, naturally, sells peanuts, more peanuts than any vendor in Arlington Stadium. What’s the secret, Jeanne? “No secret. I just love the people out there. I wouldn’t work anywhere else in the park. Everybody’s got a $2 seat so there’s no social status. Nobody’s sitting in their boss’s seats out there. They’re genuine. I love ’em.”

They love Jeanne, too. Over a 15-game period, they bought $2,871.10 worth of her peanuts. Out of the 35￠ bag, 7￠ is hers. That translates to almost $10 an hour. Plus tips, but that doesn’t mean much out there. “I think the most I ever made in tips for a night was $2,” says Jeanne, “and I must have sold 600 bags that night.”

Don’t worry about Arlington stadium concessions, period, thanks to the innovation of stadium food and beverage manager Tony Ayala. Baseball nachos. Tony first introduced nachos to the ballpark during the 1975 season, the first ballpark in the world to serve them. Last season, Tony pushed over a quarter of a million orders of nachos, by far the hottest item in the park. In so doing, Tony used over 30 tons of Kraft Cheez Whiz and some 6,000 gallon cans of jalapenos. Tony says he’s already matched that mark this season and will sell at least 300,000 orders by October. At an average of 14 nachos per order, that’s over4 million nachos.

Now you can concentrate all your worries on the Rangers.