Old school: Painter handcrafts Cashman’s outfield walls
Seems like everyone from the president of the Pacific Coast League to a well-known business newspaper have dumped on poor, old Cashman Field, calling out the 30-year-old ballpark off the edge of downtown Las Vegas for lacking modern amenities from suites to indoor batting practice areas.
But one fascinating element of the Las Vegas 51s’ beleaguered home is the baseball-loving artist who still paints team sponsors’ ads on the outfield fence — an unusual feature in professional baseball because most ballparks have padded fences with vinyl ad graphics that stick to the pads.
The painter-artist is Ken Kline, a 57-year-old former University of Nevada, Las Vegas fine arts major who lugs out 30 colors of paint to create handcrafted outfield wall ads as big as 1,000 square feet.
The 25 to 30 ads painted by Kline range from a 20-by-50-footer on the left-field fence showing a Golden Nugget ad publicizing entertainer Gordie Brown to a much smaller ad with simple lettering promoting Citibank.
“It’s old school,” observed Mike Graham, the 51s sponsorship services manager. “He’s the bomb.”
Digital printing has eclipsed most hand-painted commercial signs in modern ballparks, but Kline is a throwback and one of a handful of hand-paint ad craftsmen left in professional baseball, said Chuck Johnson, 51s general manager and vice president of marketing.
“I would suspect he’s one of the very few,” Johnson said.
Kline takes pride in the color of the hand-painted ads, which he believes add to the fan experience of seeing an outfield wall adorned with Brown’s well-tanned face or a bold sign promoting Findlay Toyota.
“It’s really colorful,” Kline said. “It pops up the place.”
While most minor league ballparks enlist vinyl graphics or banners for their signs, which could take several days, the 51s contract with Kline, who can turn around a sponsor’s requested sign in less than 24 hours, said Mike Hollister, 51s vice president of sponsorship sales.
“We’ll get the art (from a sponsor) and in one day Ken will come out, shoot it, project the artwork on the fence, outline the drawing and the next day he paints. With Ken, it’s one-stop shopping,” Hollister said. “People don’t even realize it’s painted signs. Everyone thinks it’s banners.”
Not only does Kline add color to the ballpark and create the ads faster, he also saves the 51s money because the cost to hire him for the sign work is about 50 percent less than the expenses of enlisting a digital sign-making company, said Don Logan, 51s president and chief operating officer.
Kline, a bearded, medium-built artist who wears a Dixie State University ball cap because one of his two sons, Kevin, attends college there, grew up in Venice, Calif. The Rancho High School graduate said the job is a lot more complicated than it sounds.
“It sounds easy to project an ad and fill out the colors but there’s a lot involved. You have to make sure the copy is straight and centered on the board,” said Kline, an assistant baseball coach at Rancho High School since 2006. “It looks more fun than it is. You’re getting paint all over yourself. It’s a dirty job.”
Kline has practiced the lost art of outfield fence sign painting for more than two decades. He began at Cashman Field on smaller hand-paint jobs such as lettering on door windows and ticket signs before graduating to the much bigger ad signs, which come in five sizes from 10 feet by 20 feet to 20 feet by 50 feet.
Minor league baseball, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Fla., does not know the exact number of minor league ballparks that use outfield fence sign painters, said Steve Densa, minor league baseball executive director of communications.
Densa cited one team, the San Jose Giants, but offered no other examples.
The type of sign paint used by Kline is very different than the stuff you use on your house exterior. The ballpark sign paint has a thicker viscosity and there are times when Kline has to dilute the paint with thinner to apply delicate touch work.
One of his toughest jobs was painting a Caesars Palace ad that involved a marble border. Lots of “sponging and dabbing” did the trick, Kline said.
Kline was checking out some of the signs this week when Hollister gave him the news that Golden Nugget wanted a new ad posted on the left-field wall.
That means Kline will apply a coat of white paint across the face of Gordie Brown and the rest of the Golden Nugget ad and he’ll start from scratch again.
“For all the time and effort you put into an ad, there comes the time you have to white-coat it out,” Kline said.
Contact reporter Alan Snel at asnel@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273.`