CLEVELAND, Ohio - If you go to Indians games, you know Jim Stamper. You might have talked to him at the ballpark, probably took a picture of him, shook his hands or seen him on television.

Stamper's presence at Progressive Field is as comforting as Andrew Miller coming into a game and as steady as John Adams' bleacher drum beat.

If anyone deserves the title 'first fan' at Progressive Field, it's Jim Stamper.

He's the guy with the signs. He doesn't find TV cameras, they find him. There's a limit to how often players will sign autographs and pose for pictures, but for Stamper, there is no break. He's a celebrity without ego, a former bar owner with an endless number of pals and a never-ending smile.

Spending time with Stamper isn't about being a fan. It's about friendship.

A former worker at his bar stops to say hello, then quickly returns with a beer for his old boss. A mom and son ask to take their picture with him. Another wants to chat about Rocky Colavito and players of the past. Even opposing fans are polite. Once, a trio of drunken Boston fans approached him.

"I thought I was going to get my ass kicked," he said. "They came up to me - 'We love your sign, we want Francona back.' "

It's no wonder, he said, that after a recent win it took him 45 minutes just to walk to the top of the section he was in.

"I don't care," he said. "I'll stay here all day."

And he does. He's hard to miss, with the seasoned salt and pepper hair and white beard, orange corduroy pants, Indians jersey and Wahoo visor.

A neighbor took him to his first game, in 1959 when he was eight.

"I was hooked," he said. "Like any kid today, with (Francisco) Lindor giving him a ball. It gets in your blood."

In Cleveland Municipal Stadium, he once brought a 'Save the Chief' sign. Someone said 'What are you going to do with the new stadium?' He'd go, and he'd bring signs, that's what he'd do. From 1994 to 1998 he went to about 70 games a year. He's down to 20 or 25 games in retirement, canvassing the ballpark on his SRO ticket.

Take a close look at his signs and you'll see where the seasons and the weather have taken their toll. Tiny dings, scratches and dents form the battle scars from scores of games. Stamper is quietly proud of the placards he hoists, the smiling Chief Wahoo flexing his muscles. Small American flags poke out from the tops. Circular cutouts make holding them easier as he lugs them to and from the stadium.

He has several and brings three to games. Sometimes people ask him to hold all three. He changes out the messages - "Americas team," "An Indians Summer Indeed," "The Chief is Happy." For Thursday's national anthem, he strolled briskly to the centerfield flag pole with his recent one: "O Say Can You Stand!"

In 1995, Fernando Montes, the team's strength and conditioning coach, spotted Stamper and his signs. "He yelled at me 'Call Fernando!' " So Stamper did. Next thing he knew he was getting his signs painted in Montes' room.

He used to scrawl messages in magic marker until about 10 years ago, when he started going to Kinko's. He's flashed hundreds of brief messages, and uses a rubber pad to tear off magic numbers.

They hold few signatures, which is just as well; it's always been more about the photos and the messages. But on Oct. 26, 1995 - his birthday and Mike Hargrove's, too - Joe Walsh sang the national anthem before Game 5 of the World Series.

"I lowered it behind home plate," Stamper said, "and he signed it."

Since Stamper's Pub in Fairview Park closed in 2015, his life has been spent around baseball and family. He has two sons and two daughters and a wife who'd "rather sit at home with the grandkids and watch these shenanigans on TV."

One son serves as a federal agent in Afghanistan and sees his father occasionally via MLB Network, 6,800 miles away. Another son weathered the recent hurricane ripping through the Florida Keys and told him: "We're getting our ass kicked, but I see you!"

"I am 65 going on 18," Stamper says. To call him a fixture at the ballpark doesn't seem to do him justice. Not for someone who will mark his 46th consecutive opener in 2018.

"It takes me an hour to get out of here," he says. "Everyone has a camera in their pocket. Sometimes they ask 'how much?' "

But there is no fee, only smiles.

A fan wanders up to the Cleveland-born and bred Stamper and reminisces. At one point the man says, "It's good to see some things never change."

He could have been talking about the signs, the messages, Wahoo.

It's nice to think he was talking about Jim Stamper being at the ballpark.