Rick’s Cafe: The Phillie Phanatic is down! The horrible truth about mascot accidents

They call it “goal-posting”, in which a group of people, usually from the cheering squad, seize a mascot and carry him, feet first, toward a football goal post. At the last moment the feet are spread wide, and post violently meets mascot crotch. Here’s a video of this happening to a costumed chicken: exact school origin unknown. (It’s at the end of the video). Right in the McNuggets. It’s sad, really.

Mascot violence happens a lot more often than you’d think, and is no joking matter. For are not mascots just like us? If you cut them, do they not bleed? If you poison them, do they not die? And if you let them give piggy-back rides to athletes at the Olympics, do they not crash comically into utility carts? Yes, mascots are routinely the victims of senseless violence, and often even abused by their own kind. A commenter on the Mid-American Conferenece message board writes: I love mascot fights. My freshman year, Hooter the Owl showed up rowdy (drunk, was the rumor) to the Syracuse game, and would end up getting ejected after tackling the Orange and rolling him around the field.

But they are also frequent victims of tragic accidents. On Wednesday the Phillie Phanatic, beloved by baseball fans everywhere and considered the dean of costumed sports entertainers (now that the Famous Chicken and Tommy Lasorda have both retired), was struck by a foul ball at a Minor League game and rushed to the hospital. But not right away. As children screamed and parents scrambled to call 911, some Keystone Cops arrived, placed the medical kit on a stretcher, and left without the Phanatic. Hey, a funny gag is a funny gag, and no one’s paying him to make them sad. But eventually the Phanatic made it to the emergency room, where doctors puzzled at his anatomy and argued over how to treat him, much like the operation scene in E.T.

This happened at a Minor League game in Allentown, PA, as the Phanatic was making a guest appearance for the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs at Coca Cola Park. The Phanatic was struck in the neck with a foul ball and went down like a heap of carpet, which he is. Via Hardball Talk: Tom Burgoyne, the man behind the Philadelphia Phillies mascot’s green fur, was still being treated at 10:15 p.m. in the emergency room of Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.

Yes, for mascots it’s a jungle out there. Here are the seven most notable baseball mascot accidents from recent times, according to my research:

7. Mariner Moose and Slider both go down in same season. The Moose broke his ankle while performing a stunt he’d pulled off thousands of times previously, sliding into a padded outfield wall. Slider, meanwhile, injured two knee ligaments during a complicated dance routine in the ALCS and was out for the season. Both happened in 1995, as this classic SportsCenter video reminds us.

6. And We’re Living Here In Allentown. Phillie Phanatic was hospitalized after being struck with phoul ball in the sixth inning at a Minor League game in Allentown, PA. Iron Pigs mascot Ferrous the Pig was unhurt.

5. No one knows exactly what happened to Splash (pictured left), the mascot of the Single-A California League Stockton Ports. But we all wish him a speedy recovery.

4. Dandy Yankee and the Deathly Hallows. Sometime in the 1980s, no one is exactly sure when, the Yankees debuted Dandy Yankee. From GJ2 Land: To say Dandy was not accepted by the Yankee Nation is a bit of an understatement. After being beaten up in the stands by bloodthirsty New Yorkers, the person playing Dandy quit. The Yankees chose not to replace this employee and the character known as Dandy faded into the ether. To this day, many notable Yankee officials are on record as denying Dandy ever existed.

3. Sausagegate. It was July of 2003 when the Pirates’ Randall Simon clubbed one of Milwaukee’s Racing Sausages — the Italian Sausage — with a bat as it ran by the Pirates’ dugout. The sausage eventually recovered and Simon was fined $432 and forced to apologize.

2. Bring Me the Head of Mr. Redlegs. In May of 2008, Mr. Redlegs was speeding around the warning track on the back of a golf cart driven by fellow mascot Gapper, when tragedy struck. Mr. Redlegs tumbled from the cart and was decapitated, his mascot head rolling for a good five or ten feet.

1. Wolfie, Moonwalk to Doom. It was the farewell appearance for David Kert, who played University of Nevada-Reno mascot Wolfie Jr. While performing at a 2010 baseball game between the Wolfpack and the Minor League Reno Aces, Wolfie Jr. attempted to moonwalk on the roof of the Aces dugout, but misjudged the distance and fell off, plunging to the concrete floor below. Video of the accident, of course, went viral. Kert: “The players kind of ignored me at first, then one said ‘Are you OK, dude?’ But they didn’t want to touch me.”

Such is the lot of a mascot, where games are endured in stifling, heavy costumes, children feel they have free rein — nay, a duty — to punch and beat them, and they live their lives in anonymous futility. But when you get down to it, aren’t we all just going through life playing a role? Who among us really show the world our true selves? Aren’t we all wearing masks every day of our lives?

The difference is, the rest of us rarely wear carpet remnants. And when we do, we usually aren’t struck by baseballs.

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Rick’s Cafe Americain appears on Thursdays. Contact: Rickchand@gmail.com.