Vendor 'Crazylegs' Howard hits home at AT&T Park

Photo of Sam Whiting

It is the sixth inning at AT&T Park, and "Crazylegs" Howard is on the move. He's sold his last bag of kettle corn in the stands behind home plate, the refill station is past the left-field foul pole, and here he comes darting through the crowded concourse on wobbly arthritic knees, at age 71.

To a ballpark vendor, an empty satchel is the same as taking a seat and watching the game. Or as he puts it, "sitting is losing money. Moving is making money." So as soon he can reload, he's back out there bellowing "k-e-t-t-l-e, kettle corn time here, kettle corn," always spelling it out first because his elocution is not what it was since he lost his teeth.

Even standing still, he is moving, because the main thing he is known for at San Francisco Giants games is his dancing in the aisle, with herky-jerky moves that evoke Michael Jackson in the moonwalk era. That's why he calls himself "Crazylegs" Howard, though everyone else seems to call him "the kettle corn man," or, more formally, "Mr. Kettle Corn."

"He can make change, he can sell kettle corn and he can boogie, all at the same time," broadcaster Duane Kuiper says while giving him TV airtime. "The kettle corn man."

Plenty of exercise

His real name is Howard Ellsworth Lowe, and he stands 5 feet 7 inches and weighed 180 pounds at Friday's home opener. By closing day, in the fall, he'll weigh 150 pounds. Guaranteed. You want to lose weight, try following the kettle corn man for one full game.

He works the entire circumference of the stadium, up and down, round and round. He won't quit until the crowd is leaving, after the game. Neither will his voice, which is boosted by after-hours karaoke sessions, where he likes to sing "House of the Rising Sun."

"He's got charisma. He gets the crowd smiling, and that's all it takes," Antoinette Martinez of Sacramento says after buying a bag of kettle corn at the final game of the Bay Bridge Series last week.

The vendors at AT&T are paid straight commission, 15 percent of sales, plus tips. On a good game last season, Lowe could clear $100. This year brings a 50-cent price hike on kettle corn, from $6.25 to $6.75 per bag. Last year, a fan might round up to $7 for a 75-cent tip. This season that same $7 leaves a quarter tip, which means he will either have to sell more bags to boost his commissions or dance harder to boost his tips to $1.25 a bag.

Feeding fans' hunger

So far, the second strategy is working. When he starts shimmying to the Eagles' "Life in the Fast Lane," the bags are nearly shaking loose from their bin. And that is after off-season knee surgery.

Sheri Williamson of Davis is compelled to stand up and shake it with him. Then she buys a bag and leaves a $4 tip.

"A lot of the guys try to emulate what he does out there because it does boost his sales a little bit," says Ryan Casperson, regional manager for Hol 'n Jam Ent., which runs the concessions at AT&T Park and most other venues in the Bay Area. "Howard would be the most well-known vendor that I've ever had working for us."

In many ways, Lowe is like a Major League ballplayer, having moved up from the minors eight years ago. He winters in West Sacramento, and before each season he says goodbye to his "lady friend" and catches a Greyhound to San Francisco.

Hostels' price is right

Once here, he moves from hostel to hostel ahead of the maximum stay, which is anywhere from three nights to three weeks. He grumbles when he has to climb to the top bunk, in a six-bed dorm room, but the price is right - between $15 and $30 a night. He rarely eats ballpark food, eating lunch at the Salvation Army and fast-food joints for breakfast and dinner.

He won't go home to West Sac until the season is over. When the Giants go on the road, he goes across the bay to work the Oakland A's games. He also works 49ers games, Raiders games, and whatever else he can fit in. At one San Jose Earthquakes game last year, customers were treated to a duet by Crazylegs and Krazy George, professional Bay Area cheerleader and claimed inventor of the wave.

"He's pounding his drum, and I'm tearing it up right next to him," Lowe says of the renowned South Bay noisemaker.

The other vendors, many of whom also sell kettle corn, do not call Lowe "the kettle corn man," "Mr. Kettle Corn" or "Crazylegs" Howard, which is how he signs autographs. They call him "Casey Stengel," and not just for the visual resemblance.

"Casey Stengel was a Hall of Fame manager, and Howard is a Hall of Fame vendor," says Greg Armour, another salesman. "Howard is the best. You can't get no better than that."

Roaming the stadium

Vendors at AT&T Park are not assigned sections. They are free to roam. Lowe doesn't do the upper deck because the aisles are narrow and the stairs steep and one too many times he has had a prankster bark him all the way up to the top row only to cancel the sale. So he leaves that to the younger vendors, meaning everybody else.

Down on the Promenade Level, he moves from the left-field line to the right-field line with great speed as the stands are still filling in, going down into the lower boxes and straddling the bars that divide sections. He stops and doffs his cap for the national anthem, then works his way back, aisle by aisle, methodically walking down to the front row, turning around, waving a bag of corn and doing his shtick.

Once the game starts, he'll dance to whatever comes on the stadium sound system. If the kettle corn man is in your section during the rare game that they play "Say Hey (the Willie Mays Song)," get out the iPhone. Whole sections will stand and clap along.

"Every once in a while he goes into this routine, and it's pretty amazing," says Barry Simons of San Francisco. "I know a lot of the vendors because I've been going to Giants games and 49ers games and Warriors games for 30 years. But that guy definitely takes the cake."

By the sixth inning, Lowe is on his third refill of 20 bags. Then it slows, and he moves only four more bags in the last three innings, not counting the bag he gives to two little kids imitating his dance.

For his afternoon of constant movement and huckstering, he sells 44 bags to earn $44.50 in commissions and $25 or $30 in tips, an average take.

He feels it in his sling-shoulder, his lower back and knees. Then he has to wait an hour for a crammed Muni streetcar. But the kettle corn man never complains.

"See you next Friday," he says to fans, in advance of the home opener. "I can't wait."

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.