Stadium's head usher has seen it all, but he really wants baseball to return

Chuck Plumberg will do anything to watch a baseball game. Since 1966, he has worked thousands of hours at sites throughout Anaheim Stadium. He's been a ticket collector and an usher. He's now the head usher. While baseball is his passion, Plumberg's also sat through monster truck pulls, motocross events and Billy Graham revival meetings one of which filled the stadium to its peak capacity. But it's baseball that he loves and has since he was a youngster in Kansas City and followed a Triple A team there. This year, however, could be a watershed year for the 70-year old Plumberg, who was recently honored as the stadium's employee o"We didn't anticipate the strike running that long," Plumberg said. "It ruined the playoffs. Baseball has an awful lot of followers ... and they missed that a great deal." Plumberg took his first parttime job at the stadium the year when it opened in 1966. Like thousands of other Orange County baseball fans, he was drawn to see the Angels play their first game in Anaheim. He was even thrilled when the Rams arrived in 1980 and turned the baseball-only stadium into a dualpurpose sports facility. In their early days here, the Rams drew crowds as large as 62,000. Plumberg thrived on the excitment. "If you like sports and you like being around people this is a. great job. But baseballls my first love. The year the Angels won their division was the highlight of niy time here," he said. His stadium job represents his third career one he vows to stay with until he sees the Angels bring a championship for owner Gene Autry, or as long as the city, which owns the stadium, wants him ar"This old building just throbs with the excitement of sports," he said. "I'm here early enough during an event day to watch it come to life and then I see it go to sleep again." Plumberg was born and raised in Kansas City, Mo. In 1941, he enlisted in the Navy and spent the remaining years of the war as a seaman in the Pacific, taking a short break to fly back to Seattle to get married. He witnessed the signing of the Japanese-American peace treaty in 1945 and stayed in Japan for the first six weeks of the occupation, searching for paint so his ship would look good when it sailed into San Francisco. After retiring as a navy chief, he began his second career with the state's Employment Development Department. When he retired from that job, he devoted himself to his job at the stadium. Plumberg's position is not unlike that of a host working a 69,000-seat restaurant. He and his 235-member crew treat all guests like the famed Rams-owner Georgia Frontiere, who had a suite on the 50-yard line complete with a bed and a hot-tub. "We're here to make sure the guests are comfortable and to provide the best service possible. There's pride when you work here. People are here because they want to be here," Plumberg said. Plumberg takes these sudden changes with an with the ease of someone used to change. "Just think what's happened to this place in the last 20 years and project it into the future. You'll see a lot happen," he said.