PLAYER PROFILE: DEALER SAM

Dealer Sam has ranked amongst the PCHL league leaders in Fashion Average (career .788) and On-Fashion Percentage (career .944) since his debut in 2011. He has played for Egypt '84 and The Mission Street Dealers, primarily as a Catcher. He hits in the middle of the lineup for average and at the very top of the lineup for style, innovation, and authenticity. I sat down with him recently early one morning at a chic 5th-wave Berkeley cafe to discuss some PCHL issues of the day:
 
Wow, Dealer Sam, it is a pleasure to get this chance to sit down and talk. You are widely considered to be one of the most Fashionable players in the PCHL, can you tell us a little about yourself and your Fashion Forward team, The Mission Street Dealers?

The Dealers have always been an image-conscious team. Our motto is, "If you can't win, be fabulous." We were the first in the league to have custom-made hats, unless you count the Nobles, which nobody does. Our logo is a mirrored version of the old Milwaukee Brewers logo, in which a lowercase "b" and "m" cradling a baseball are flipped to form an "m" and "d" cradling a pill. We have a sleeve patch that features a cartoon pitcher hurling syringes and pills over a stylized "KO" logo - The Knockout, our official sponsor. The theme, subtly expressed, is that we're drug dealers. A somewhat mysterious choice in that none of us have any connection with the supply side of the drug business, and we mostly just buy and smoke horrific amounts of weed. Our fierce yellow-and-blue uniforms are based on the San Diego Padres of the 1970s - same font and everything - because we always expected to be an obscure team that would be heckled by scanty crowds of bored surfers.

I myself was born in a toilet stall in The Odeon nightclub in New York City in 1986, the illegitimate biracial child of Grace Jones and Don Mattingly. My parents taught me only two things before they abandoned me on the doorstep of an upper-middle-class family in Menlo Park, CA at the age of eight: "never swing at the first pitch" and "never let anybody pigeonhole your sexuality."

Dealer Sam at a recent event in Oakland, which raised money and awareness for Fashion Education in Bay Area Schools. "One of my secrets to staying highly fashionable is staying connected to the youth culture," Sam notes. 

When you joined the PCHL did you find it difficult to learn the rules of baseball? Was it hard for you to tell your family and friends that you were playing in a baseball league?

I was already a baseball fanatic when I joined the PCHL, but my interest had more to do with fashion than any technical appreciation of the game itself. I loved the handsome, stoic avian who stared blankly from the Toronto Blue Jays' hats, and I loved the Cirque du Soilel boldness of the Montreal Expos' tricolore pinwheel hats. I basically just loved the Canadian teams' hats. Soon I learned that there are horribly arcane rules about balks and checked swings and other subjects I never wanted to learn about, and I stubbornly refused to do so. I have a pretty good grasp of the Infield Fly Rule, though. This is why I am considered a fair-to-middling umpire. 

In the backyard at Menlo Park, I used to take apples from our apple tree and whack them over the fence into the neighboring yard with a Glenallen Hill souvenir bat I got from a particularly lame promotion at Candlestick Park. The neighbors would huck them back and shout "WE ARE NOT YOUR COMPOST HEAP!" My dad would nod bemusedly and say, "Sam's going to be the next Darryl Strawberry." Then he would go into the house and fight with my stepmother while I ran around in circles on the lawn, pretending to be Brian Johnson after his famous home run against the Dodgers. Years later I approached my dad and told him I was the Kirt Manwaring of a beer league in San Francisco called the Pacific Coast Hardball League, and he told me to get a job.

Who are some of your favorite fashion icons within the PCHL?

As far as on-field fashions go: Dealer Jesse wears Doc Martens or motorcyle boots when he pitches, which conveys a certain reckless and sexy defiance of practicality and common sense. Woods from the Brians has been known to wear gorgeously hideous pants, but he seems to have toned it down recently, as the D.C. Brians angle for respectability. Charlie had the sleeves of his Nobles jersey removed by professional tailors, which has a trashy dago deliciousness to it. 29er Ray will sometimes rock a tidy turtleneck-and-flip-shades combo reminiscent of his favorite mid-'90s mediocre shortstop, Chris Gomez. Jameson Beers absolutely refuses to buy baseball pants, which I respect. But the all-time winnner is that one guy who played in one of our pickup games wearing a Brewers jersey and Padres hat. 

Off the field: Stu Beers perpetually looks like he's roping a skiff to a yacht. His look is fresh and clean and very classic Ralph Lauren. Charlie and Jamo Beers are walking billboards for an obscure UK 82 punk band called Chron Gen, which is cheap and easy and ecological, requiring only a marker and the cheapest denim. To be honest, I'm my own favorite PCHL fashion icon. Most of you people look horrible. I pioneered the cinched-at-the-waist jersey, the ascot, mascara, the lopsided '80s skater haircut, the pencil mustache, and not wearing shin guards when catching. I Lagerfelded the fuck out of this league. 

Having spent the day on a leisurely sail around the Bay, Stu Beers leaves the SF Marina Small Craft Harbor to hit the Marina bars with various Nobles and 29ers players. Stu is sporting 29er Ray's vintage Eddie Bauer button-down in anticipation of the #1 PCHL Spring 2015 Trend, wearing the clothes of your opponents.

I've spotted you and several other highly-visible PCHL players sporting the iconic "Oakland Beers Warm-Up T"  around the Bay Area in recent months. Can you confirm - yes or no - that publicly donning the uniforms/ephemera of opposing PCHL teams is, in fact, very IN at this point in time?

I'm glad you brought that up. Dressing up in other teams' uniforms is like wearing an ex-girlfriend's panties or tottering around the house in your mother's heels when she's away at work - it's a way to escape the prison of your own identity and, more importantly, get an erection. There are pictures of me squeezed into Dave Nobles' warm-up T (because it was funny) Danny Cleaners' jersey (because I'm afraid of him) and 29er Ray's jersey (because we have mutually enabling drug problems). I'm sure you'll dig those up. I also recently acquired a custom Oakland Beers shirt with a Palestinian flag motif. It seemed like a natural match; both factions are underfunded and underrated and I think the contents of Jamo's gun cabinet match whatever Hamas has got in its arsenal.

E.J. Brians on a photo shoot modeling the infamous "Oakland Beers Warm-Up T," further proof of the newest jersey-swapping trend.

Can you tell us about the Mission Street Dealers' Spring 2015 Line? I understand you guys are experimenting with wild variations of the maize and blue look, is that correct? And what's the deal with the halter tops?

We currently have no plans to introduce a gorgeous POWDER BLUE third jersey, so get that out of your head right now ;)

As for halter tops, I have one word for you: CELLULITE. 

The Mission Street Dealers' Hat: WOW. A lot of people are wondering how the best lid in the league came into existence. Enlighten us, Dealer Sam.

In our first year of existence (as Egypt '84) we had this guy from Milwaukee called Egypt '84 Craig. Our team already wore blue and yellow (I refuse to call it gold, as if yellow was something to be ashamed of) and Craig would show up in a very sensible blue-and-yellow vintage Brewers hat. Then Spoon got ahold of one (It's possible he lived in Milwaukee in the '80s. It's possible he did some of the things that were pinned on J. Dahmer, he's been around) and it became fashionable to wear a Brewers hat on Egypt '84. When Egypt '84 became the Mission Street Dealers, John noticed that the "MB" would form an "MD" if flipped, and the greatest hat in PCHL history was born.
 
Wow, that is fascinating. Can you please settle the score once and for all: The Mission Street Dealers are primarily inspired by:

A). The 1980's Milwaukee Brewers
B). The 1970's Seattle Mariners

I'm not going to answer that question.

Is it hard to play the game of baseball when you're out there trying to establish a perfect look, or set a new PCHL fashion trend?

It's the hardest thing in the world. It's comparable to watching your child die, or watching Elias "E.J." Brians try to stretch a home run into a double. Often I'll be so concerned that my cinched jersey is just the right level of "sassy" that Mitch Beers will strike me out three times in one game. But as Coco Chanel slept with various Nazis, we do what we have to do. 

This interview has been a-maize-ing but unfortunately I need to head off to do some shopping. It takes work to look this good!

Thank you so much for your time, Dealer Sam, and I wish you the best of luck with the rest of your season, I can't wait to see what you wear next!!

Sam and Charlie Beers enjoy a drink at a recent PCHL gathering. Sam wears his custom "Free Palestine" Oakland Beers workout T while Charlie wears his custom "Charles Hercules Beer" T.