A major event for minor league job seekers

He has spent nearly a quarter of his life in radio -- long enough to know he doesn't want to spend the rest of it doing traffic and weather.

"I'm trying to get a minor league play-by-play job," Westbrook says earnestly.

He has come to the right place -- the center of the baseball universe.

For four days last week, the Hilton was where representatives from the 175 teams that account for baseball's 15 minor leagues came to meet, talk shop and interview candidates for more than 250 jobs, including sales, clubhouse attendant and mascot.

"It's amazing," says Steve Hurlbert, director of media relations for the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Dodgers' triple-A affiliate. "People want to get into the game."

Hurlbert broke into the baseball business at this job fair nine years ago, and he has compassion for the applicants. "Sometimes it's hard when you're in this process," he says, noting that the Isotopes conducted 50 interviews for nine job openings. "And I feel for these kids who are going through this, I really do."

Most recently staged in conjunction with baseball's annual winter meetings, the job fair has been held for 14 years and funneled thousands of people into jobs that can promise only low pay and long hours in isolated locales such as Casper, Wyo., Great Falls, Mont., and Idaho Falls, Idaho.

The applicants come seeking a labor of love.

Dave Sachs, media relations director for the triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs, gave up a good-paying job in insurance two years ago to attend the fair job fair in Orlando, Fla., where he landed an internship with the Jupiter Hammerheads of the Florida State League.

"We don't get rich off this," says Sachs, who even at the top rung of the minor leagues makes only about $20,000 a year. "[But] I love being able to wake up in the morning and come to work at a baseball stadium. . . . That's worth more to me than the extra money I'd be making."

A love for baseball seemed to be the top reason some 500 job-seekers were drawn to this year's fair, Westbrook, friend Adam Meggs and recent Penn State graduate Eric Berlin among them.

"I'm young enough where, if I don't do it, I'll wonder in 10 years if I should have," says Berlin, who brought along four suits and 175 resumes.