About JP, the Host and Creator of Catch Up with JP

I made this episode of me talking about myself because I don't want to have to talk about myself. I will be the LEAST interesting person on any of these shows, so any time spent talking about myself will be time wasted. This will be the most you ever hear of my voice.

I filed this as a "Bonus Feature."

Transcript

Jeff Perro (00:06)
Hey there, everybody. I'm Jeff Perro the host of Catch Up with JP. With this podcast, show, I catch up with former professional baseball players. That means that every conversation I have, I'm going to be the second most interesting person in the room. So with that said, you won't hear a lot about me, or a lot from me. But I thought it was just kind of important that a viewer would get to know me little bit and know a little more about me and the purpose of this and where I'm coming from.

First of all, we'll go in the way back machine. I grew up in Arlington, Texas. My family and I had Texas Rangers season tickets. Season tickets, we go about 30 games a season. We'd also go to events that the team had outside of the ballpark and before and after games. Autograph sightings, stuff in the wintertime, the winter carnival, whatever the Rangers call it back in the day.

My family and I became tight with lot of the players, including Bobby Valentine, who was the manager, Ruben Sierra, Pete Inclaviglia, Bobby Witt, Geno Petralli, Steve Buechele, Don Slaught these guys that our family became really tight with. And I got to know these guys on a personal level. So I saw them as people. A lot of times I think baseball fans get caught up seeing they're help my team win, fantasy stats.

names in the box score, salaries, things like that. But I, from a young age, get to see these guys as people. So I grew up around the game as a little guy. Then during my college days, Not even my college days, before that, first job working in professional baseball, I was a bat boy for the Mobile Bay Sharks of the Texas -Louisiana League.

Some of the players from that team included Don Carman, the manager with Butch Hobson, Mike Porzio, who ended up reaching the big leagues, Kelly Mann, who played in the big leagues, a few other names. But it was low level, independent baseball, and I was a bat boy for that team, and boy was it lot of fun. So I was going for a degree in sports and event marketing. I wanted to work for professional baseball team. I wanted to sell tickets be a scout.

something in between, I didn't care. Life happens, I dropped out of college. So a few years away from college and a few years away from baseball, I started thinking, I want to be back around baseball, but I'm a dummy and I don't have a college degree, what can I do? Oh, clubhouse manager. So I learned what a clubhouse manager was. Responsible for the bats and balls and jerseys and pregame, postgame food. So in 2001, I sent out a bunch of emails to minor league baseball teams.

from Seattle down to Florida saying, hey, I don't know what a clubhouse manager is, but I want to be one. And then I got one response from the Birmingham Barons, which is actually about an hour away from where I lived And so in 2001, the Barons had already

going through a couple of guys in the home clubhouse who weren't that great. Let them go. I started immediately. It was probably a third of the way through the season. I finished out that season in 2001. And then my other job, I worked in restaurants as well. started throwing money and stuff at me and opportunities and all that. So I left the left baseball after 2001. Then I worked in restaurants for a long time. Had fun, made some money.

In 2007, I got itch again. I was living in Clarksville, Tennessee. Well, the 2007 Baseball Winter Meetings were right down the road in Nashville. Oh, perfect. So I got myself a little fancy sport coat, typed up a resume, went to the winter meetings in Nashville. And on day one, I got offered a position with the Augusta GreenJackets. So for the 2008 baseball season, was a

clubhouse manager for the Augusta Green Jackets of the South Atlantic League. After that season, I planned to go back or possibly try and get promoted to San Jose, but those Birmingham Barons found out that I was back in professional baseball. So I went back home to Birmingham and I was home clubhouse manager there 2008, 09 and 10. 2011, there was opportunity down in the road Montgomery.

Beautiful ballpark in Montgomery. I always loved going to games there. So I decided to take that gig. And I got to work for the Montgomery Biscuits for two years. Following that, after two seasons and a total of eight, working in professional club houses, I was getting old, mid 30s. And it's hard to have a life with that job.

And it's hard to date. And it's hard to...

I spent a of time alone in that job. So I decided to get out and went back to restaurants. Moved down to Florida. Did a life of spring training for a couple years. Rays games. Then

I met a young lady from Florida while I was moved down here and she said, I want to go somewhere. So we hit the road. We move to Dallas, move to Northern Colorado, Montana, Tucson, Maine, move back down to Florida. We got back down to Florida, spit out a couple kids. My son just turned five, my daughter just turned three. So I've got those two little ones that I can take around and teach things. It's great.

We moved down to Bradenton, Florida last summer. So I live three miles from the Pirates Stadium at Lecom Park about six minutes from their complex Pirate City on the other side of Bradenton. Yeah, that's about all I say about me. That's about all you're hear about me. I guess I know of all these conversations, I'm going to be the second most interesting person in the room.