Baseball's Team Mascots Blame Heavy Costumes for Discontent

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ^ | Sept 2 2002 | JERRY GUIDERA

[2Trievers]

MILWAUKEE -- Dripping with sweat, 20 of the most colorful characters in baseball peeled off their rubber suits and made for the exits.

On the field, some of the game's best sluggers were still taking swings in the annual Home Run Derby prelude to the July All Star Game. Twenty-four of the Major Leagues' mascots were scheduled to entertain the crowd on the sidelines during the derby and then stick around for some post-event high jinks. But as the competition dragged on, all but a handful were wilting after hours of running around in their heavy costumes in the 90-degree heat.

[BluesDuke]

Personally, I think that unless you get a very unique performer - the Phillie Phanatic and, especially, The Chicken come to mind - leave the damn mascots to the philistines at the football games already! (Guess I still remember the like of Charlie O. the Mule and the San Francisco Crab too vividly...)

[BluesDuke]

Also, I think I missed your take on the All-Star game's tie-finish. Unless you don't have any opinion on it. Yeah, right... :)

Of course I have an opinion on it...and it's this: The All-Star fiasco is one time (underline that, gang) when it wasn't Bug Selig's fault. Not his fault that for one night Joe Torre and Bob Brenly couldn't remember how to manage a baseball game reasonably. And boy, did those two end up with omelettes on their faces (which in Brenly's case almost wouldn't make a difference, since he does look as though someone put out a fire on his face with a spiked shoe, not that Torre is any raving beauty if you're going to go there!) when, it turned out, both Vicente Padilla of the Phillies and Freddy Garcia of the Mariners could have pitched at least five more innings if they'd been asked to do so...the All-Star Game fell on a day when Garcia, schedule mandating, would have been the Mariners' starting pitcher in a regular game, while the day was Padilla's normal throwing day between starts, which I guess no one believed until Phillies manager Larry Bowa went on national Fox Sports Radio the next day to confirm it.

[Semper911]

They are also fed up with exhausting schedules, menacing fans, the heat and general lack of respect.

Okay, here's the deal: You have a job. You decide your job sucks. You get a new job.

Any questions?

[2Trievers]

Of course, I always thought the antics of the olde managers were better than any mascot! &;-)

[BluesDuke]

Of course, I always thought the antics of the olde managers were better than any mascot! &;-)

Some classics:

Casey Stengel, New York Yankees, 1960: In a mocking of Comiskey Park's famous exploding scoreboard (a Bill Veeck creation), when a Yankee blasted one into the seats in Comiskey he was greeted back near the dugout by Stengel and his Yankees prancing around in front of the dugout holding those Fourth of July sparklers.

Casey Stengel, New York Mets, 1962: After Marvelous Marv Throneberry had a two-run triple negated when he was called out for not touching first (first base coach Cookie Lavagetto, stopping a bellowing Stengel from trying to manhandle the umpire: Forget it, Case. He didn't touch second, either; Stengel, in retort: Well, I know he touched third because he's damn well standing on it!), the next Met hitter, Charley Neal, belted one off the Polo Grounds' upper deck facade for a three-run homer. Stengel popped out of the dugout immediately and stood athwart insanity, yelling "Stop!" Neal froze a few steps up the line. Then Stengel pointed to first base and stamped his foot, and only then did Neal dare to begin his run around the bases. As he turned around each base, he glanced back - and saw Stengel pointing to the next base and stamping his foot, repeating the routine until Neal crossed the plate safely. The Polo Grounds crowd went nuclear with that one.

Earl Weaver, Baltimore Orioles, 1970s: Going out to the mound to talk to relief pitcher/flake Ross (Scuzz) Grimsley, amidst an opposition threat, Weaver gestured and jawed and then said to his stunned pitcher (who was often enough accused of throwing the spitter), If you know how to cheat, now's the time.

Whitey Herzog, Kansas City Royals, 1978: Urging leadfoot first baseman John Mayberry to try for home and remember to slide, the White Rat tried to make an upper body gesture to indicate an instruction to slide...and ended up doing a belly flop in front of the Royals' dugout.

Gil Hodges, New York Mets, 1969 World Series: Hodges upended managerial custom, real and alleged, by calmly walking to home plate umpire Lou DiMuro with a baseball in his hand, and without saying a word showing DiMuro the smudge of shoe polish on the ball, which had ricocheted off the foot of Met hitter Cleon Jones. DiMuro turned the ball over once and then jerked his thumb toward first base, indicating Jones had indeed been hit by the pitch.

Bobby Valentine, New York Mets, 2000: The famous incident in which Valentine, tossed out of the game after an argument with an umpire, reappeared in the runway between the Mets' clubhouse and the dugout with a Groucho Marx-like mask over his face and a different uniform shirt on. The umpires caught on soon enough and were distinctly not amused.

Bill Robinson, first base coach, New York Mets, 1986: Robinson walked out to the coaching line during a nationally-televised game...completely unaware that the heel of his right foot was in flames until he got to the coaching line. The culprit: infamously flaky relief pitcher Roger (The Met Most Likely To Be Committed) McDowell.

Alvin Dark, Kansas City Athletics, 1967 - Actually, Dark was the hapless victim in this one. Another flaky relief pitcher, Moe Drabowsky, was the culprit. Drabowsky, a known mimic, could do Dark so dead-on that he decided to call the Oakland bullpen and order a relief pitcher to start getting hot...while Oakland starter Jim Nash had a no-hitter going toward the seventh inning! Nash glanced back, saw a reliever up in the pen, and lost his concentration and, in short order, the ball game. Dark went out to the mound and learned the hard way his starter thought he actually did order the relief pitcher up and throwing, and Dark practically exploded on the mound. (Drabowsky, by the way, also once scared the fabled Atlanta Braves mascot, Chief Noc-A-Homa, into a near heart attack by running a string of firecrackers and M80s from the bullpen to the chief's teepee above the outfield fence and ignited them, "waiting," as Drabowsky put it inimitably, "for the Chief to surrender.")

Ron Gardenhire, Minnesota Twins, 2002: - Happened this season, folks. Gardenhire had been winged in the face with a cream pie by veteran relief pitcher Eddie Guardado after a particularl exuberant Twins win, and Gardenhire decided to follow the code of Delta House: Don't get mad...get even! He did, the following day, strolling up to Guardado's locker while the pitcher sat on a stool in front of the locker and dropping a live lobster in Guardado's lap.

Joe Schultz, Seattle Pilots, 1969: Seen hollering at reserve catcher John Gelnar during a game, Schultz actually told the catcher to come up to him and listen to an instruction. Then, according to Jim Bouton, Schultz pointed seemingly toward the field. He was actually pointing to the box seats and saying to Gelnar, "Gelnar, check out the rack on that broad!"

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