Devil Rays intern Jesse Litsch likes nothing better than being at work these days, now that his lifelong avocation is his summer vocation.

By ALINE MENDELSOHN
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 19, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Talk about mixing work and pleasure.

Fifteen-year-old Jesse Litsch doesn't just love baseball. He lives it.

For as long as the team has been playing, Jesse has tried to attend every Devil Rays home baseball game. Now he doesn't have a choice. He has to be there -- it's his job.

Jesse, a sophomore at Dixie Hollins High School, is one of four Pinellas County teenagers selected for Devil Rays internships co-sponsored by the Rays and the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Suncoast. The other interns are 18-year-old Dixie Hollins graduates Jonathon Adkins and John Whitehead Jr. and 16-year-old Alicia Johnson, a student at Clearwater High School. Applicants wrote essays on "Why I Want to Be a Devil Rays Intern."

It's the ideal summer job for Jesse, who has played baseball since he was a toddler. Even then, his dad says, he was not only a great player but also a loyal fan, rattling off starting line-ups practically from his crib.