Jordan Meserole working as a bat boy for the Texas Rangers.

It’s the best seat in the ballpark and, for any takers, it pays you to be there rather than the other way around. But it doesn’t allow you to sit back and enjoy the game for too long. The requirements for this gem of a seat? Keen and ever-vigilant eyes, attentive ears, youthful reflexes and jets for legs.

“It was a lot more than picking up a stick off the ground,” Jordan Meserole laughed.

For four seasons, the top step of the visiting team dugout at The Ballpark in Arlington served as a starting block of sorts for Jordan. Perched near the railing, he monitored every pitch of every at bat, ready to dash to home plate. Jordan was a bat boy with the Texas Rangers.

“My dad had season tickets for two or three seasons,” Jordan, my friend of almost 18 years, explained. “I’d go to most of the games with him. Over the course of those games he got to know the head usher, the head of security, this person and that person. My dad was talking to the head of security one night and he said to me, ‘I heard they’ve got three kids leaving the clubhouse this year. They’re all graduating high school. Would you be interested in applying? I can give you the phone number to the clubhouse manager?’ I was like, ‘Uh, yeah! Absolutely! Sure!”

Jordan served as a bat boy with the Rangers from 1999-2002, working three full seasons as a student at Fort Worth’s Southwest High School and then part time after his freshman year at Texas A&M. He was a high school sophomore when he landed the job to rival all teenage summer jobs.

“I called (the clubhouse manager) and he said, ‘Hey, send me your resumé.’ I’m 15 turning 16, so like every high school kid I’m listing ‘mowed lawns.’ They brought me down for the interview and they said you seem like you’ll fit and I got the job.”

There was just one unexpected caveat to the job for the son of a Rangers’ season ticket holder.

“I was hired by the Rangers and worked for the Rangers, but I got assigned to the visitor’s clubhouse. The visiting teams never bring a bat boy on the road. The home team provides it. I was the bat boy for the visiting team even though I only worked at the ballpark.”

There was a very brief adjustment period for the kid who had grown up rooting for the home team.

“In the beginning, when I first started, I was a little bit fanboying and trying to find reasons to sneak into the Rangers clubhouse, like I’d find another bat boy to talk and catch up with or whoever. But then I started to really like working on the visiting side more. I’d still every now and then run across Pudge (Rodriguez) or Juan Gonzalez or someone like that.”

As a true homer, there may have been moments when Jordan’s instinct was to cheer for the Texas team. He unlearned the behavior.

“What I would have to hide or be mindful of in the clubhouse, or out on the field or picking up the bats, if the Rangers had a comeback win, that’s when I had the uniform of the opposing team on. I couldn’t show any type of emotion, not even a little fist pump or anything like that.”

Jordan soon realized that while he had the opportunity to see his favorite Rangers, he also had a chance as rare as palladium to meet with MLB greats from visiting teams. It was a golden age and Jordan stepped into the bat boy position in the wake of several historic moments when the world’s eyes were on pro baseball — moments that transcended the first and third base lines. Just four years prior, Cal Ripken Jr. had broken Lou Gehrig’s 56-year-old record for 2,130 consecutive games played. A year prior to Jordan’s becoming a bat boy, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were the most famous figures in sports during the chase to break Roger Maris’ single-season home run record. Young superstars inspired by Ripken were taking to the field, names like Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciappara.

“Probably the most surreal experience was the very first game I worked,” Jordan said. “(It) was preseason, you know, they usually do two or three spring training games at one of the ballparks instead of in Florida or Arizona. So the very first game I ever worked was a final spring training game against the Cardinals. I remember they had me go back into the training room to get some more ice and there was Mark McGwire sitting on the bench and getting his shoulder worked on. I remember I probably looked like an idiot staring so hard at Mark McGwire.”

He had more than just the opportunity to see them. As Jordan settled into his position in the clubhouse, he says some days it felt like he was on the roster, friendly ribbing included.

“The players used to love card games to pass the time. Some were playing, maybe rummy or go fish or something like that, but needed a third and pulled me in. These guys weren’t stars. They were playing for money but I said I didn’t have any being 17-years-old. So they said if I won, I got to keep the pot. If I lost, they got to shave my arms and legs. I lost and indeed owned up on the bet and they made sure I shaved my arms and legs.”

There was also the time when Ken Griffey Jr., then with the Cincinnati Reds, invited him to join him and play Tiger Woods PGA Tour on the Playstation 2.

“I was going through (the clubhouse) carrying towels and he was like, ‘Sit down and play a game!’”

Some of the players were just a couple of years older than Jordan, young men trying to seal their legacies in the pros. Jordan addressed them by their first name. There were the few who commanded respect, not by their own requests, but by their very existence. Jordan added “mister” before the last name of Ripken, Jeter and the like.

His most memorable encounter was sharing a five inning chat with Mr. Ripken. When Jordan met his idol, the Hall of Fame shortstop inquired about his future college plans. Then a high school senior, he told him he would be attending Texas A&M in the fall. When Ripken returned to the ballpark the following season, it was something he brought up.

“It blew me away that he remembered,” Jordan said. “He might have just been guessing but that always stuck with me like wow, the guy remembered that almost a year later that a kid that he only saw for a three game series was going to be an Aggie.”

Jordan would later spend the better part of an entire game with the baseball legend.

“With the streak over, he would take some games off. It was his son’s birthday that weekend. He had a six-year-old son at the time. The family came to Texas so that Cal could see him for his birthday and he wanted to spend time with his dad on his birthday. So, they made him an honorary bat boy. But when game time came, he was scared. Cal was already not playing that game so he came out and sat for four or five innings next to me on the field in the bat boy station. It was me, Cal and his son. I got to spend that time with Cal Ripken Jr. just chit chatting. He’s definitely my favorite player.”

With the type of access Jordan experienced around the big leaguers, you might think he had a few run-ins with divas. But he doesn’t remember encountering many egos.

“I’d say 80 percent of them, you could just walk up to them and they’d say “How are you doing?” They were just very casual and approachable, great guys that could crush the ball and make $20 million a year. Jeter was very approachable, actually.”

“With the Astros, Lance Berkman, I just remember the guy could have been my brother. He was goofy and cutting up with everyone. You didn’t know he had just crushed 30 homers that year.”

As exciting as rubbing elbows with baseball’s immortals could be, Jordan’s responsibilities as a bat boy were vital to the game itself.

The work is detail-oriented and spans long hours. Responsibilities that could impact the game if left unfilled. For a game with a 7:05 pm opening pitch, Jordan arrived at the ballpark by 4:30. Duties were broken down into segments: pregame, in-game and postgame. Part of pregame responsibilities included prepping towels, taking gear to the bullpen for catchers and pitchers, taking out all of the bats and helmets, and making sure there were buckets of balls available for batting practice.

“The bat boys would get the (sunflower) seed buckets ready and the bubble gum and the Powerade jugs. I’m sure you’ve seen them get smashed by bats,” Jordan chuckled. “Every time one of those gets smashed a bat boy cries because we were the ones that prepped those. We’d have pouches of the dried Powerade or Gatorade, and you’d mix it up with these giant paddles. You had to try to make sure the ratio was just right because some of (the players) didn’t like it sweet.”

“The bat boy is supposed to work the bucket, which means you stand at the backstop just beyond second base out in center field and as the outfielders shag the balls they throw them to you. So, whenever the pitching coach would ask for more balls, that’s when you’d run them in.”

“Sometimes the pitchers would work the bucket and you got to go out and shag balls every now and then. One time, with Mo Vaugh, former first baseman for the Red Sox, I was out shagging balls and he was like, ‘Wow, you can really fly and catch them. If you can catch a ball over the wall, I’ll give you a hundred bucks.’ So the whole series (against the Red Sox) I was out there chasing them as hard as I could. On the last night, during batting practice, I caught one. I didn’t take it from over the wall but I jumped and caught it with my back against the wall, so I hit it a little bit. He was like, ‘Close enough.’ He gave me the hundred bucks.”

“Once BP was over, we brought in all the balls, changed out the towels and made sure the water was still full. Sometimes the players would want their cleats cleaned again before game time and I had to do that. We had to be out on the field 10 minutes before the national anthem.”

His In-game responsibility was primarily running the bats back and forth for the hitters stepping into the box. Remember that attentive hearing needed for the job? This is where it was the most critical.

“If the bat cracked, even if it didn’t shatter or break in half, you had to be listening to hear it,” Jordan said. “So you’d sprint down to the dugout, know where all their extra bats were and take a new one out.”

Jordan became accustomed to listening for specific sounds in how the ball jumped off the bat.

“You have to pay attention to foul balls. Bat kids have to bail out in some cases, because those on the line are sitting on stools. So when you run, you grab (the stool) so that the ump or player doesn’t trip on it.”

Postgame work would span an additional two hours after the final play. Bat boys retrieve all the gear and equipment they put out pregame, dump the Powerade and clean out the bullpen as well. They then collect the players’ laundry.

“All of the players would sit their cleats in their lockers and you had to clean the starters’ shoes. I used this thing, like a metallic grill brush, to get all the clay out. If their cleats had a little bit of leather, I’d shine them up with some shoe polish so they had a sheen and put them back in their lockers.”

An afternoon of work that began at 4:30 typically ended around 12:30 a.m. That can be a heavy load for a teenager juggling the course work of a full high school curriculum.

“It was tough at times but you’re a teenager so you can operate on a lot more negative sleep than a 30-year-old can,” Jordan joked. “The home game stretches where they had six games in a row could be a little bit tedious, but then they’d go on the road for six or 10 games. So really I never fell behind on school work or anything. There would be a couple of times that I was doing my homework in the morning right before I headed to school.”

“They rely on the bat boys more than you realize. It’s not like you put on the uniform, grab the bats and then go home. If they want you to run out and get them a taco because they come from Minnesota and want a Texas taco, you do. There were like five or six guys that would have you run out and get stuff. I know one of them, the most prominent one, was Barry Bonds (who) had me run out and get him a burger.”

Bat boys received a small stipend per game but Jordan says some players tipped him for his hard work.

“So I ran out and got Barry Bonds a hamburger. He’d give you a little tip when they left town. Or, they tipped if you stayed on it. Sometimes they were superstitious, so a starting pitcher might say, ‘Hey go get me this long sleeved shirt because I want to wear it now.’ They’d tip for the little extras.”

Now 38, Jordan still holds to the clubhouse rules that included his signing of a confidentiality agreement as a bat boy.

“I think there might have been a sign outside the door that said, ‘What happens behind these doors stays behind these doors.’”

He saw the things concealed from the view of fans: players walking up the tunnel to smash things during frustrating, fruitless streaks, arguments and players being separated from one another.

“There was a little sink in the bathroom next to the dugout door and I think that sink had to be replaced twice because players took a bat to it.”

He worked on the back end of the steroid era, before the story broke and marred the view for fans who love the game. When I asked if he ever saw anything that made him question a player’s on the field performance, Jordan stayed mum.

“I never saw anyone actually use openly in the clubhouse, but I’ll just say that I had my suspicions and leave it at that. There were some things I saw that definitely I was like ‘hmmm’, but I knew to keep my mouth shut at the time.”

A father of two young daughters who lives about 10 minutes north of Philadelphia now, Jordan looks back on that time in his life as whimsical. He says MLB from 2010-2020 has missed the superstars of the game that he viewed with awe. The retirement of Derek Jeter seemed to signal the end of a magical era in Jordan’s eyes. There’s a new ballpark. Bat boys won’t know the same extreme conditions of toughing it out on sweltering July nights, or the frustration of shielding your eyes from the blinding sun during a Sunday afternoon game. The fancy roof will protect them from sunburns. Back then, his hat tan lines had just begun to fade over the winter months as a new season started to replace the marks on his head.

Fondly he looks back on his teen years with the Rangers and occasionally pulls out some relics. He has a collection of MLB hats, almost 30 in all—one hat for every team he worked with. The same for the jerseys too. His memorabilia stash includes five shattered bats, one belonging to former Yankee Gary Sheffield.

“It’s still, and to this day I say, one of the best jobs I ever had.”