Clutching a stick clamp colored a reflective shade of green, the man in the dark blue Haymarket "staff" shirt slowly trudged his way through the bleachers, carrying a black trash bag in his opposite hand.

Down the first base line, behind home plate and eventually over to the metallic bench seats along the third base line, he snatched up soda cans, plastic wrap from flavored push ice pops, remaining bags of sunflower seeds and deposited them in the bag.

Wearing black sneakers, off-white Bermuda shorts and a baseball cap brandishing the red "H" of the Haymarket Senators logo in the font popularized by the Boston Red Sox, Bernie Schaffler conducted his normal clean-up routine well past 10 p.m. last Sunday night at Battlefield Park in Haymarket following the Valley Baseball League all-star game.

Normally, this is not a typical duty a casual sports fan would associate with the owner, or even co-owner, of a baseball team.

Yet it's all part of a night's work for Bernie.

"We can't do this on our own," said Schaffler, referring to his fellow owners Robin Schaffler, Jayme Hinschberger Newell and Scott Newell. He stressed the need to keep the Haymarket community interested in the not-for-profit NCAA-sanctioned wooden-bat baseball team.

"There's more people coming, there's more to do," Schaffler said.

He received some help that night from a couple interns, who swept the splintered shells of peanuts and sunflower seeds off the bleachers and into piles on the dirty concrete floor.

They come from a pool of 12-16 volunteers that the Senators staff can count on nightly to pitch in with duties around the stadium. The organization, he stressed, always needs more helpers.

Concessions, merchandise sellers, public address speakers, cooks... you name it, he can use it.

Bus driver Don Scott is a retired Air Force veteran who does some landscaping on the side. He drives up from the other side of the county to pitch in night after night throughout the summer, leading the team all around the Interstate 81 corridor from Harrisonburg to Winchester in a bus that formerly carried University of Virginia baseball players.

"My nightmare is that I get a call at 2 n the morning with 28 players and coaches" stranded on the run, said Schaffler.

So far, Schaffler said as he knocked his knuckles on his head, that hasn't happened yet. The diesel machine runs with a new engine the Senators management sank big bucks into during the off-season, specifically to avoid those types of problems.

"It's not the nicest bus but it gets us from A to B," said Haymarket pitcher Peter Kelich.

Meanwhile, Jeff Porter can be seen at each night serving as the grill master, cooking up a storm not just for fans, but often for the players after games too.

"The best way to keep these guys happy is through their bellies," Schaffler said with a laugh.

But between volunteers like Porter and Scott, he added, "Those people are hard to find."

Once Schaffler finished collecting rubbish from the last of the bleachers, the black bag he held up chest-high that still touched the ground finally could be tossed out. He dragged it across the dirt path in between the concrete and back fence, leaving rake-like streaks behind in the turf, water lines making a sort of linear arch around a black trash can on the harder surface and out of the entrance gate.

"Usually the players are still here," said one youngster in a Glory Days t-shirt with jersey-like numbers on the back as he walked from behind the third-base dugout back toward the exit.

"The game ended an hour ago," said another, shorter boy, dawning the same type of shirt.

"No it didn't!" replied the taller one.

It was 10:37 p.m.

Clean-up still wasn't close to done.

For someone who tends to his team like Schaffler, there is still an innocence about his demeanor and ideals.

During the past four seasons, the Senators have broken ground in big ways as a baseball club each year.

In 2008, they finally made the playoffs.

In 2009, they won the VBL tournament championship.

In 2010, they finished the regular season with the best record in the league.

In 2011, they hosted their first all-star game, bringing out 17 Major League Baseball scouts to the yard along with an attendance of 502 people.

Yet Schaffler made special mention of the fact that a reporter from the Washington Post showed up to cover the all-star game.

That, he said, "is huge," getting the major media attention like that and all.

If the downturn in the economy has adversely affected the Senators organization, Schaffler had a hard time proving a case.

He noted that sponsorships are up, simply pointing to the number of banners hanging on the outfield wall. They cost $500 bucks each.

"It's not like we're asking for the moon," said Schaffler.

Chili's even provided food for the 80-something players and coaches that arrived on Sunday. Glory Days had its own tent. The Senators logo can even be seen off the Battlefield High School campus, like at the Giant grocery store in the Dominion Valley shopping plaza.

Attendance is up too, averaging over 400 per night on weekends with a little less than 100 on week days.

"It's such a cheap thing," Schaffler said, referring to the $5 entrance fee and cheap eats and drinks at the concession stand. "Twenty bucks doesn't buy you a whole lot anywhere else."

There, it's an entire night out.

While acknowledging how some other teams in the league outdraw the Senators on a night to night basis, the byproduct he said of there being more stuff to do locally at night in Northern Virginia.

Even former supporters of the defunct Fauquier Gators are starting to come around to the Senators with a couple used-to-be and would-be host families offering their homes to Senator players this year. Schaffler explained he had to politely decline as he had too many folks offering their places already.

In the end though, "the volunteers are key," he said.

"Without going not-for-profit, we couldn't do this."