Moonlighting Is His Pastime : Grant Coach Levine Doubles as Dodger Stadium Usher

Every baseball fan loves to reminisce about the great games, the great players and the great moments they have seen. But how many fans can boast that they have attended nearly every Dodger home game for the past 16 years--and been paid for it?

Howard Levine can.

Levine, the boys basketball coach at Grant High, has been a fixture at Dodger Stadium since 1972, when he became an usher while still a 12th-grader at Grant.

“I was a big Maury Wills fan and it was his last year,” Levine, 33, said. “I used to spend a lot of time at the stadium and I said, ‘Hey, this would be a great job. I’d be able to watch a ballgame and get paid doing it.’ ”

From his post at Aisle 7 of the field-box level, Levine has had an usher’s-eye view of some of the greatest moments in Dodger Stadium history. Like when rookie right-hander Bob Welch struck out Reggie Jackson for the final out in Game 2 of the 1978 World Series.

“I was down in the Yankee dugout that night,” Levine said. “Jackson was so mad. He snapped his bat, then bumped Bob Lemon out of the way. Then he came walking in my direction. I thought ‘What’s he going to do to me?’ ”

Levine eluded the Yankee slugger, but Jackson caught up to him later. “He knew that I saw everything and he apologized for the way he acted,” Levine said. “He said that they had food in their clubhouse and if I wanted any all I had to do was grab him and ask.”

That kind of exchange is what Levine has valued most about his job over the years. Making contact with people has been an education for the schoolteacher.

“I don’t think I’d be the person I am today if it wasn’t for my working at the stadium,” Levine said. “There are a lot of things I can attribute to working there. I deal with thousands of people every day.”

Levine, an avid Dodger fan, has been impressed by several people at Dodger Stadium. His list of favorites includes Steve Garvey, Mike Scioscia, Steve Yeager and Vin Scully. But the person he has learned the most from has been Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, who has befriended Levine.

“He motivates so well,” Levine said. “I can really see where he’s coming from. I try to instill the same thing in my players.”

Balancing his coaching duties and his job at the stadium isn’t easy for Levine, who also teaches health education. Sometimes he has to hurry from school to the stadium without stopping for dinner. Sometimes he’s not at the stadium at all.

“I missed Jack Clark’s home run,” Levine said of the shot that enabled St. Louis to come from behind and defeat the Dodgers in Game 6 of the 1985 National League Championship Series. “We had basketball practice and were listening to it on the radio during water breaks.”

The moment was a high point for neither the Dodgers nor Levine.

“That’s baseball--those things happen,” he said. “You like to remember the good things.”

Without a doubt, Levine’s fondest memories are of the final three games of 1980 between the Dodgers and the Houston Astros. The Dodgers won three straight games to force a divisional playoff.

“People were going crazy and people were crying,” he said. “It was so emotional. I’ve never seen the stadium like that before or since. I still get chills thinking about it.”