Paula on Point

This piece is one of six usher profiles I wrote that were published by Major League Baseball on the San Francisco Giants website in 2004. They originally appeared in my Guest Services paper newsletter, ‘The Home Plate.’ To read the piece online, click here.

The word “fun” comes up a lot when you talk to Dolores Solano; she uses the word often to describe her past and present activities. Before long, one understands that with her warm demeanor and easy laughter, Solano finds fun just about wherever she is.

Continue reading “Usher Just Wants to Have Fun”

This piece is one of six usher profiles I wrote that were published by Major League Baseball on the San Francisco Giants website in 2004. They originally appeared in my Guest Services paper newsletter, ‘The Home Plate.’ To read the piece online, click here.

SBC Park usher Frank Jimenez didn’t play Little League baseball as a kid growing up in Hayward, Calif. Some neighborhood pickup games materialized, but that was it for him. It’s interesting, then, that he is now enshrined in the Little League Hall of Fame in San Ramon.

The road from there to here actually started in Medina del Campo, Spain, where Jimenez was born. Frank’s father was born in America but had emigrated back to Spain with his family. In the years following World War II, the economy in Spain inspired Frank’s father to return to America with his own young family. Frank came through Ellis Island as a 2-year-old, en route to California.

Continue reading “Usher Big for Little Leaguers”

This piece is one of six usher profiles I wrote that were published by Major League Baseball on the San Francisco Giants website in 2004. They originally appeared in my Guest Services paper newsletter, ‘The Home Plate.’ To read the piece online, click here.

Folks come out to the ballgame for many reasons. If they regularly take the Willie Mays Lobby elevator to the View Level, one of the reasons they come is for their hug from usher Sedonia Broussard. And pity the poor Guest Services employee who is standing in for Broussard on one of her rare days off.

A recent replacement told her, incredulously, “People come off the elevator with their arms open. They say, ‘Where’s Sedonia? Where’s my hug and kiss?'”

Continue reading “Usher Greets Fans with Open Arms”