This vendor loves working with peanuts
For 43 years, Dodgers baseball has been a very fun shell game for Robert Sanchez.
Robert Sanchez’s mom told him to get a job. He was going bowling all the time, and it was costing her some serious dough.
So the 16-year-old from Lincoln Heights walked to Dodger Stadium and picked up a gig hawking peanuts. That was 43 years ago. He hasn’t left.
“It’s PEANUT TIME, everybody!” the mustachioed vendor’s voice boomed through the stadium’s crowded left-field loge section Friday night, during the Dodgers’ first postseason game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. “Peanut time! Peanut time!”
He tossed a few bags, shouting, “Look alive!” and high-fived fans.
Then the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw threw a strike. Sanchez stopped into the middle of the aisle, raised a bag of goobers in each hand and screamed, “Yeeeaaaahhhhhh!”
Sanchez follows in the grand tradition of longtime Dodgers vendors, including octogenarian peanut pitcher Ronnie Nelsen and the famed behind-the-backpeanut-tosser Roger Owens, who started selling soda for the Dodgers at the Coliseum in 1958 and appeared
on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson four times.
At 59, Sanchez — who’s also known as the Churro Man on Reddit — is a whippersnapper. And he’s a snack salesman for the social media age who’s drummed up quite a following for his always-happy commentary on the Boys in Blue.
On Instagram, he’s pnutman88 — the 88 being 1988, the last time the Dodgers won the World Series. There, he claims his middle name is “Fun Fun Fun.”
A few hours before Friday’s game, Sanchez, wearing his bright-yellow vendor’s shirt, sat alone in the reserve section, high above right field, reading the notes he’d jotted on a piece of yellow paper: He was pumped up. The hair was standing up on his arms — even though he doesn’t have much.
It was for his pre-game Instagram video. He doesn’t usually bring notes, but, hey, this is the playoffs, and this is important.
“This is it, the chips are down, let’s play the game,” Sanchez said to the camera, noting that the team should be fine with Kershaw on the mound.
“Let’s have a great time, as they butter that infield,” he said, zooming in as he admired the groundskeepers watering the dirt. “My God! And, let’s go, L.A.! Let’s go, Dodgers!”
His videos always get more exuberant as the game goes on. Between sales, Sanchez grabs a few fans — the more excited, the better — for a shouted on-camera selfie-style interview that shows the world how much fun is being had at Chavez Ravine.
A few innings in, Sanchez talked to a man who said he just became a Dodger fan.
“I like that guy already, man!” Sanchez said, pointing at him. “Good job. Everybody’s having a good time here. Go, Dodgerrrrrs!”
A young man hopped into the shot.
“Yeah, Peanut Man, baby!” he shouted.
“Who’s winning tonight?” Sanchez asked. “Los Doyers!” Sanchez, a retired Los Angeles Unified School District carpenter who lives in Duarte, says he’s got the best job in the world. Depending on how far the Dodgers go in the playoffs, he could hit his 3,000th home game this year.
When Sanchez married his second wife, Terry, in 1996, she told him he didn’t have to keep vending if he didn’t want to. She was a schoolteacher, and they now had two incomes.
“My knees buckled,” he said, laughing. “It’s not even about the money anymore. I love working here.” Since he started in 1974, Sanchez has seen the Dodgers play in five World Series, winning two.
Last summer, he was working the bleachers in the outfield when he looked up and saw a home run ball flying toward him. It was one of the first hit at Dodger Stadium by Corey Seager, who would go on to be rookie of the year.
One of Sanchez’s hands was full of cash, and the other got smacked by the ball.
“I had a bruise,” he said. “I thought my finger was broken. But, I tell you what, what a memorable moment. My hand was purple for about eight days, but it was worth it.”
If he had his druthers, Sanchez would usually sell peanuts and Cracker Jack, because they’re such a baseball classic. He loves selling churros, too, because who doesn’t love a churro?
When the crowd chants, “Let’s go, Dodgers!” he chants, “Let’s buy churros!” They usually chant along with him. And buy some churros. “People are fun,” he said. Every game is different. Every crowd is different. He’s grown fond of climbing the stairs because it keeps him in shape, and he’s averaging about 14,000 steps a game, according to his pedometer. But you’ve got to be careful so you don’t slip in any nacho cheese. He’s done that before.
Sanchez is always having a good time, but his smile is biggest when he talks about his family. He’s got two grown boys, one with a master’s in kinesiology and the other who’s a philosophy professor and author.
“I threw a lot of peanuts to get them there,” Sanchez said.
Now he’s got five grandkids he adores. His 6-yearold granddaughter, Leilah, has become a star in his Instagram videos. This year, when the Dodgers swept a team, Sanchez and Leilah would print out the opponents’ logos, cut them out and put them on the floor. Then they’d sweep up the mess for the camera, with Sanchez’s wife filming.
“Hey, Peanut Man!” the ponytailed girl chirped after the Dodgers swept the San Diego Padres in their final matchup last month. “Yes, Leilah?” “We already swept San Diego!” she said.
“Yes, we did, and we kicked their butts!”
“But this time it’s like taking candy from a baby!”
In the stands, people who watch his videos tell him they want to form a Leilah fan club.
On Friday night, as Sanchez was preparing to walk down another aisle, Anthony Mendieta, 25, of Bellflower recognized him from his videos and gave him a fist bump, saying, “Yeah, Peanut Man!” as he grabbed the vendor for a selfie.
Mendieta said seeing Sanchez — and knowing he’s been here for so long — makes Dodger Stadium feel like home.