Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

His Altoona Curve business card says his title is Information Services Director and Graphics Designer.
But, 24-year old Bill Edevane of Bellwood says he wears many hats as an employee for the Double A baseball franchise. Edevane explained it’s pretty difficult to describe what a typical day is like around the team’s front office and facilities at Blair County Ballpark.
Sometimes, the day starts as early as 7 a.m. if the tarp must be removed from the playing field. He said it takes more than an hour to make the field ready. On other days, employees get started around 9 a.m.
Fifteen-hour days aren’t unusual since the team starts most home games at 7:05 p.m. By the time the last light is turned out at the ballpark after a two-and-half to three-hour game it might be well past midnight.
He said everybody on the staff usually does something that’s not part of their job title or description.
“I was hired just to be an (information technology) guy,” said Edevane. “Fix the network; fix someone’s computer – then that went into me doing the graphic design.”
He said he does everything from sponsorship proposals to pocket schedules and brochure designs. He is also responsible for designing, maintaining and updating the team’s merchandise web site, its marketing site and its new statecollegebaseball.com site. He said he would also be responsible for merchandise and marketing Internet sites for the State College franchise that is set to start play in 2006.
During games, Edevane is involved with promotions, on-field contests and taking photos. Previously, he was an in-game producer and still does fill-in work with those duties. He said he might be called upon to do any number of things for the Curve’s closed-circuit television broadcasts including graphics, the video board and sound.
Edevane did many of the sponsorships signs in the park. He is also responsible for many of the Curve logos throughout the park including those on the elevators.
Edevane attended Penn State Altoona and received further training through the Computer Learning Network. He said his technical certification is through Microsoft. He said he would be coming up on his third season with the team in October. Edevane worked a number of other computer technology jobs prior to joining the Altoona baseball franchise.
Edevane is engaged to Dena Sneath of Bellwood. His parents are Bill and Barbara Edevane.
He is a Bellwood-Antis graduate and has played a number of sports including baseball, football and basketball starting as a youngster and continuing through high school.
Edevane is just one of 29 full-time employees for the team. Curve Director of finance, Machelle Noel said the employment rolls would be expanding with the addition of the State College baseball team under the Curve ownership. She said that in addition to the full-time employees, the team has more than 180 part-time workers. That’s not counting concession workers who are employed by Ovations Food Services. She also said many of those working in concessions are volunteers who raise funds for their respective organizations.
The Curve clinched a postseason berth on Monday with a win over third-place Bowie. The win allowed the team to finish second by two games to grab the last available playoff spot in the Eastern League. The first and second-place teams in the Northern and Southern divisions of the league make the playoffs.
The Curve will play game one of a best-of-five Southern Division First Round series tonight at Akron. Game two is set for Thursday at Akron. Game three and a possible game four are scheduled on Friday and Saturday at Blair County Ballpark. If necessary, a fifth and deciding game would be played at Akron on Sunday. First pitch for all games in the series is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
If the Curve advance, they would play either Portland or Trenton for the Eastern League Championship. More coverage on the team can be found in today’s sports section of The Daily Herald.

By Rick