KANSAS CITY - Ron Baechle, better known as the “Towel Man” to St. Louis Blues fans, is in his 35th season throwing towels. He says, “It still boggles my mind, too, that I'm still doing it, but I love it. It's great.”
Baechle says it all started when he took a trip to Peoria, Illinois with a friend, Monsignor Myers, to watch a Blues minor league game. “The first one, two, three goals, this gentleman, Pete Martin, he would get up and he would take a stance. He'd wave the towel and everybody would do pretty much the same thing that we're doing. And didn't think a whole lot about the first two or three goals, but the fourth goal, the fifth goal and the sixth goal, you've seen all 10,000 people counting and pointing at the opposing team's goalie. And you're like, 'That's pretty cool.'”
He brought it back to St. Louis. He says Pete Martin and Scott Gambino returned for game 3 and found out they had been doing it for 10 years. He says, “They got the idea or seen something similar from the University of Illinois hockey team, I believe. So it goes way back here. It's just everybody puts their little spin on it and does something different.”
Baechle says they were in the Arena the first few years and it took the crowd almost 3 years to catch on. “The first time I decided I was going to try and do this, I told about a dozen people. We were in Section 206. And I got called probably every name in the book, you know. 'What are you doing?' And I had that bath towel. So I was hitting people in the head when I was swinging the towel. So, I had to adjust that."
He points out that the Blues do not give him free tickets or towels. He says in his 3rd year Magna Bank asked him to be in in one of their banking commercials and wanted him to throw their towels at every goal. “And then from there other people said, 'We'd like to sponsor you' too. And so over the years I've accumulated sponsors and I've self-employed graphic artists.”
Baechle says they print up about 300 towels per season.