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Comedian Jeremiah Coughlan will be familiar to anyone who has spent summer evenings in Lents Park taking in a Portland Pickles game. He’s been on-field host of the collegiate wood-bat baseball team since 2019, so that can mean leading chants on the mic, working the crowd, or running silly games like “dizzy bat” between innings at Walker Stadium.
“It’s the best job in the world,” Coughlan says.
It’s also a demanding one: This summer, he worked 52 games in the course of 74 days. Meanwhile, his standup comedy career continues to rise in parallel. During the offseason, he travels the country to towns large (New York City) and small (Homer, Alaska), delivering his brand of conversational and relatable comedy, peppered with references to everyday life like going to the eye doctor or Les Schwab Tire Center. It’s also self-deprecating—Coughlan describes himself physically as “what would happen if Chris Farley ate Bob Ross.”
The mix is working, as he got to quit his day job about a year ago to do comedy full time. He released his second full-length comedy album in April, P.E.M.D.A.S. (Please Excuse My Drug Addicted Sister), which was recorded at Helium Comedy Club in Southeast Portland. He has started a monthly live comedy series at the Pickles Public House on the first Wednesday of the month, which started as a recurring show at the Pickles’ team store The Pickle Jar downtown. On Nov. 11, he will headline at Helium.
We caught up with Coughlan, 43, on a call from his Woodburn home to talk about the intersection of college baseball and comedy, dogs, and feral children at the ballpark.
WW: How did you get started in standup?
Jeremiah Coughlan: Since I was a little kid, I wanted to do standup. When I was about 30, I was the best man at a wedding and I got to give a speech. I got a couple of laughs and I was, like, oh, this is it. Some people I knew were doing open mics. I had a friend Ben—he loves this story—he was doing open mics, and he is not funny. It was like a “if Ben can do it…” kind of thing. So I started doing open mics.
And how did you land the Portland Pickles gig?
The whole thing kind of came from XRAY.fm. They wanted to start a podcast platform in 2018, and one of the ideas they had was to make a podcast about the Portland Pickles, and so we did.
Me and my buddy Jake [Silberman], who is now a comic in New York, made up a show called Brine Time, and it was just us doing goofy bits and talking about the Pickles, and we did that for one or two seasons. And in 2019, [the Pickles] were like, “You guys are here all the time, do you want this job? It’s open.” And we were like, “Yeah! Let’s do it!”
Some games we were both there, sometimes it was just one of us. But now Jake is in New York and it’s kind of an intense schedule. I had to decide that I’m willing to shut down standup for the summer. I think it works out. Summer comedy is kind of a tough sell anyways in Oregon. It’s like, oh, hey, I know it’s finally sunny out, but do you want to come into this dark bar basement?
It seems like you guys are all having a blast out there. Are you?
Yeah, of course. Well, probably less for the actual baseball players because it can be pretty intense. The Portland Pickles take summer baseball very seriously, which is funny because, like, our whole brand is not serious. But those kids want to win. Our staff wants to win. We want the baseball to be good. But they are having fun, too. They get to spend the summer in Portland and sell out every game, and everyone’s going to be crazy and have a great time, and there will be a chubby comedian guy trying to make you laugh the whole time.
What are your favorite theme nights?
Pride night is the funnest night of the year, everybody’s so into it. The recurring stuff, like Woof Wednesday, is always fun, when people bring their dogs. It’s such a dumb thing that I do, but we do a dog parade, and I just narrate the dog parade. People come up to me and say, “That’s my favorite thing that ever happens here.” I’m literally just making stuff up as I go, describing the dogs, “Oh, look at this big dog! This one stopped to pee!” Or whatever. It’s funny.
And besides the dogs and just having the best time every Wednesday, I think the funnest thing to see is if you go out to those berm areas—especially on Sundays, Little League night—and it’s just feral kids, man. Just running wild and playing catch. We’ve cordoned off this little area, and people have come to know that kids can just be kids out there and nobody’s going to be mad about it. That’s a super-cool element of what we’re doing out there.
What’s it been like coming up in the Portland comedy scene?
It’s a great scene—there’s so much local support for things and shows that happen anywhere and everywhere. Like I said, I was doing a show in a merch store for a wood bat baseball team and people came. People want to have fun and not get philosophical. My job is to make people happy. That’s my job at the Pickles, and that’s my job on the stage.
SEE IT: Jeremiah Coughlan at Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 503-583-8464, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 8 pm Monday, Nov. 11. $20. 21+. Pickles Punchlines hosted by Jeremiah Coughlan at Portland Pickles Public House, 3932 N Mississippi Ave., 503-477-9678, portlandpicklesbaseball.com/portland-pickles-pub. 7 pm Wednesday, Nov. 6, and the first Wednesday of every month. Free. 21+.