He’s a second-generation Phillies spring training employee. But he’s best known for his famous call: ‘Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer’

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Mark Estes has sold beer at BayCare Ballpark since it opened in 2004, but he still gets stopped by fans. This isn’t just because they want to buy a lager. It’s because Estes has one of the most distinct calls in the Grapefruit League.

You can hear it from anywhere in the stadium, which is the Phillies’ spring training home. You can even hear it on the television broadcast. A few times a game, Estes’ booming voice will ring through — “Beeeeer, Beer, Beeeer, Beeeer, Beeeeeer.” And when it does, customers come flocking.

Some take photos with Estes. Others take videos. A handful have asked him to sign paraphernalia.

“It happens multiple times a day,” Estes said Saturday at BayCare Ballpark. “I’m right here at the gate, so when they walk in, they hear me. Because I’m loud and obnoxious.”

Estes has always been this way (at least according to his wife, Patty). The 59-year-old vendor has no idea where the call started.

He thinks he may have come up with it when he was in college at the University of Central Florida, where he was “drinking beer all day long.” But that is just a hypothesis.

» READ MORE: Zack Tukis was cut from his high school team twice. Now, he’s trying to prove himself with the Phillies.

“When I started working here, it was just something that projected out,” he said. “People will say, ‘I thought you had a microphone.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I don’t.’

“I don’t know how I got this voice. But it works.”

Estes grew up in Clearwater. But he was raised a Phillies fan, mainly because his father would bring him to spring training games at Jack Russell Stadium.

It was a family tradition of sorts. Estes’ grandfather, Emil Klinges, managed a car lot on Gulf to Bay Boulevard. From the late 1960s through the 1970s, he would lease and loan vehicles to the Phillies. Estes lived only a mile and a half away from the stadium, so he was always around.

He remembers seeing manager Danny Ozark in the dugout and watching a young Mike Schmidt take hack after hack. His favorite player was reliever Tug McGraw, who was kind enough to sign an autograph for Estes when he was young.

He worked in local restaurants in Clearwater as a server, and in 1993, took a part-time job serving beer at Tampa Bay Lightning games. He loved it and began to look for other vending gigs.

Over the past 32 years, the lifelong Phillies fan has sold beer at games for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Rays, Orlando Magic, and for the Yankees in spring training at Steinbrenner Field. For a while, he worked Pirates spring training games in Bradenton, Fla.

He’s had the option to sell other concessions but has stuck with suds for a specific reason.

“Everybody’s in a good mood when they want a beer,” Estes said.

Vending has taken him to four Super Bowls, an NBA Finals, a World Series, and the Kentucky Derby. But Phillies spring training games have always held a special place in his heart. Estes said fans have been going out of their way to say hi to him for 20-plus years. He stays in touch with a few in the offseason.

» READ MORE: Aidan Miller used his time in Phillies camp to study Bryce Harper and learn from a ‘welcoming clubhouse’

“Philly fans get such a bad rap throughout the country,” he said. “I mean, you hear about Santa Claus getting batteries thrown at him, snowballs, booing, this, that, and the other, and that’s what the national perception is. When they came down for the World Series in 2008, they played the Rays, and I worked those games there. And everybody was like, ‘Oh, they’re so nasty. They’re so nasty.’

“And then [a Phillies fan] would see me, and say, ‘Oh, hey, you’re from spring training.’ I’ve never had a problem with them.”

The job also allows Estes to watch some of the team’s brightest stars. He can take breaks throughout his shift and tries to time them around Bryce Harper’s at-bats.

“I want to see what he does,” Estes said. “If somebody’s coming up or something interesting is happening, I can sit down, as long as there’s a seat.”

He knows he’s lucky, but it’s not the easiest of jobs. At least once every spring, Estes loses his voice. The task of standing on his feet for seven hours a day while carrying up to 40 beers in the sun, was easier when he was in his 20s. It’s less so now.

Vending is not Estes’ full-time gig. He owns an online estate liquidation business, Storetique, which sells on platforms like Etsy, eBay, and Amazon. Because he is his own boss, he can carve out time for spring training games in February and March.

The vendor has only three days off this month — March 5, Wednesday, and March 20. It’s a chaotic schedule, but in his mind, it’s totally worth it.

» READ MORE: Meet Aaron Combs, a Phillies minor leaguer who brings a Michael Jordan-like edge

“It’s kept me feeling young,” he said. “I mean, just getting out and doing something every day. It’s exercise. It’s great to see people. It’s something to look forward to every year. As soon as the spring training schedule comes out, you mark your calendar.”

Estes turned around, and saw a few Phillies fans patiently waiting for their brews.

“What would you guys like?” he asked.