He showed up last Friday right on schedule, four hours before he needed to, note cards on every player in the Pacific Coast League bulging out of his briefcase and a slight look of amusement on his face.
"Pretty nice office to have a view like this," said Steve Klauke as he stepped into the home team broadcast booth at Franklin Covey Field. Beyond the glass partition was the green grass of the ballfield, the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains and, as Klauke would say during a properly poetic play-by-play interlude, "fleecy white clouds dotting a blue azure sky."
Just another day on the job.
Praise the Lord.
The Salt Lake Stingers baseball club has been in Salt Lake 10 seasons as of last Friday night, and Steve Klauke has broadcast every inning of every game with the exception of six. That's 1,341 games for Klauke if you're keeping your own scorebook, as Steve is. And that's not counting two exhibition games he called against the Minnesota Twins and another two games he did in Portland just before the franchise moved to Salt Lake.
In normal jobs, workers don't keep track of how many days they've worked, they keep track of how many days they don't have to work. But when the stars and the planets line up properly and a man with a strong, pleasing voice who loves sports gets to go to the ballpark, describe the action and get paid to do it, you measure your quality of life same as a starting pitcher — by innings worked.
Steve Klauke is unabashed in confirming that he does what he loves and loves what he does. "I love getting to the park early, I love soaking it all in," he says. "I love walking around and chatting with the fans, and I love play-by-play. Sports talk and anchoring the news is fine. But to me, sportscasting is play-by-play."
Another thing he loves — here at the triple-A level — is seeing things before anybody else sees them. The players who traipse through Salt Lake on their way to the big-time are continually offering sneak previews of what is to come. Last year, when the Minnesota Twins — Salt Lake's parent club until two years ago — met the Anaheim Angels — the Stingers' current parent club — in the American League Championship Series, no less than 26 of the 50 players in uniform had once played in Salt Lake, where Steve Klauke chronicled their every move.
When the Angels advanced to the World Series, where they beat the San Francisco Giants, 10 Anaheim players had worn a Stingers suit during the 2002 season, including the winning pitcher of the decisive seventh game, John Lackey, and the Angels' ace reliever, Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez.
"The future is here," Steve smiles. "If you know what to look for."
He will call another 144 games this season, home and away, and he will be early for every one of them, barring plane delays or other unforeseen complications beyond his control. In the booth, he will try to stay true to the sage counsel once given to him by his broadcast mentors and heroes from his Chicago boyhood, Jack Brickhouse and Harry Carey.
"They both told me the same thing," says Steve. "No matter how bad a day you might be having personally, don't bring it into the booth. The people listening to you didn't tune in to find problems, they tuned in to escape their problems and enjoy a ballgame."
For a man with Steve Klauke's view, that's not difficult advice to follow.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.