Local pair relishes up-close playoff experience with Dodgers

Sean Harris and Allie Lacey have the best seats at Dodger Stadium.

The lifelong L.A. Dodgers fans each don an authentic jersey, run on the field with the boys in blue and have the privilege of sitting on the field during games while serving as a ball boy and ball girl at Dodger Stadium.

“It’s special,” said Harris, a 2014 Glendale High graduate who is entering his freshman season with the Glendale Community College baseball team.

Lacey, a 2012 graduate of Crescenta Valley High, said her experience of playing long toss in between innings with the home and visiting teams is special.

“You grow up watching them and you’re out there in full uniform with them. It’s surreal,” Lacey said.

Harris — who wears a No. 85 jersey — and Lacey – who sports the No. 87 — each served on the field during Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Monday against the Milwaukee Brewers, arriving three hours before the contest to begin their game preparations. Harris worked the right-field line while Lacey sat along the left-field line.

They weren’t scheduled to work Game 4 and Game 5, but they would be in the rotation for a World Series game if the Dodgers advance that far.

“I would love to come back [in the World Series] and be with the guys before the game and feel the excitement from a different perspective,” Harris said.

Harris credited Lacey for the opportunity to be a ball boy.

“It’s all Allie,” he said. “She was going to try out for the ball girl position. She told me about it and I was interested. She told me about the tryout. I turned in my application and long story short, we both made it to the tryout day.”

The tryout involved throwing a baseball about 100 feet and taking grounders off the outfield wall, simple tasks for a former Nitro baseball player and a ex-Falcon who is now an assistant coach with the Pasadena City College softball team.

Since being chosen, both have relished the moments of meeting childhood heroes and joking with current players.

“The first day I was working, Kiké [Hernandez of the Dodgers] came up to me and he told me not to mess up,” Lacey said. “I talked to him for a few minutes and I joked with him and told him not to mess up.

“When I took my first foul ball, he was playing second, he looked at me and gave me a thumbs up.”

Added Harris: “You see somebody relevant every day, whether it is a past player or a current player. It’s hard not to be star-struck with the players. It’s weird because looking at them on TV, they look so much bigger and older, but when I look around, they are all my age, these are kids playing the game.”

Lacey and Harris have both seen bloopers where a ball boy or ball girl accidentally fields a fair ball. Lacey said her goal is not to end up on ESPN’s “Not Top Ten List.”

“That’s my worst fear,” she said. “Not making that list goes through my mind all the time.”

Harris and Lacey also think about all the fun memories they’ve had at Dodger Stadium, from seeing players play pranks on each other to interacting with stars they had only seen previously on television.

These are just some of the benefits that come from having the best seats in the house.