Now that I think about it, it probably was the gorilla suit.
Oh, you're probably wondering what the context of that random statement is about. If you aren't, then you can stop reading now and go on back to whatever you were doing.
Those of you who know me know how much I love sports. I also love being a bit of a goofball at times. What entity could magically blend these two things in a serendipitous fashion? A mascot. That's right, a mascot. Sometimes furry, usually full of energy and devoted to the cause for the team which they represent.
I've thought about how in the world I ever even ended up in the various costumes that I've put on over the past 40 years or so.
In 1980 the American Tourister luggage company produced a commercial which showed an airline employee placing two bags on a luggage belt behind the counter. The bags find their way back to the bag room where the luggage is separated into the proper carts to then be loaded onto the correct aircraft before departure. But in this ad the baggage employee is a gorilla. A gorilla who is not happy about something. I don't know if he was upset because a co-worker is late in returning from a break. I know not. But whatever the reason, this gorilla takes out his aggression on this one poor bag. When the bags reappear on the baggage carousel one of them is is trashed with a few items protruding from it while the American Tourister bag is virtually unscathed.
During this time the folks at American Tourister entered into a dual advertising campaign with Polaroid. A purchase from one of the vendors in a specified value or more would get you a coupon (remember those?) that could be used to purchase something from the other vendor. I was working at the time selling cameras for JCPenney in south Tampa. Our management decided that it'd be cool to have a gorilla in-store for the promotion. The folks at Busch Gardens on the north side of town were unwilling to send a real gorilla to us for the event. So I volunteered to put on the gorilla costume and make appearances at two different stores on the same day. My first stop was my home store at Westshore Plaza in Tampa. I took photos with customers and made silly mannerisms for an hour or so. After that, I hopped in my car and drove over to St. Petersburg to a different mall. The same thing happened there, although I nearly scared the last three years of life out out of an elderly woman who turned around and saw me as I was just emerging from the dressing room.
Fast forward to 1994. I was working in Minneapolis as a fan relations supervisor for the Minnesota Twins. On a Friday home game we had a giveaway with the folks at Kellogg's. I was assigned to escort the gentleman in the Tony The Tiger costume for the entire game. I took pictures for fans, handed him items and a Sharpie which would allow him to sign items. It was a bunch of fun. During the game we should stop to relax in one of the empty suites around the ballpark. The guy inside the tiger costume, who's name I wish I could remember, told me about other characters he'd been recently and how much he enjoyed doing that job.
I will admit that I never really gave much thought about it again for quite some time. But in 1996 I landed a position in the front office with the Twins. Never did I ever dream that I would find myself working for a major league baseball team. The Twins had not had a mascot at their games since 1981, which was the last season that a character named Twinkie the Loon roamed Metropolitan Stadium.
Oddly enough Twinkie only lasted for two seasons. I can't figure out why? Can you?
In 1998 the Seattle Mariners marketing department started a promotion called "Turn Ahead The Clock" which would see the Mariners wear futuristic uniforms. The following year MLB sold the promotion concept to Century 21 Real Estate. All but eight teams participated by sending their teams onto the field wearing special sleeveless jerseys with oversized front logos and surnames printed alongside the backside numbers as opposed to the traditional location above them. Some jerseys were relatively normal. Others were just garish. Some teams modified the advertisements on their outfield walls. For example in Minneapolis the Northwest Airlines ad was changed to Northwest Spacelines.
To stay with the futuristic theme (games were "set" in the year 2021), the Twins decided to have their pre-game announcer, my great friend Jim Cunningham, dress as Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek. They also located a local gentleman who owned one of the original Chewbacca costumes from the first three Star Wars films. The fourth movie in the series had been released only two months prior. As fate would have it the owner of the costume was unable to be in Minneapolis to wear the costume at the game for us. About a week prior to the game an email was sent to all front office personnel asking if any one knew of someone who would want to wear the costume. I replied immediately and we got things set up. On July 24th I took to the field wearing said Chewbacca costume. Standing next to the batting cage during pregame warmups I met Tiger Woods, who was in town for a tournament. After that I roamed around on the field, signing autographs along the foul lines and taking pictures for the crowd, what little there was of it. That game was also the same night when Seattle outfielder Butch Huskey ran face-first into the left field wall while chasing a Jacque Jones home run. The event even got my picture in The Sporting News. A publication which I read religiously while growing up. Page 3, half-page picture next to catcher Terry Steinbach and pitcher Joe Mays. Of course, no one knows it's me between them. More details about that whole thing are in a different blog entry known as "Wookie of the Year". Look for it here in the future.
The fan reaction to having a "mascot" in the house was very positive, so plans to bring back a Twins mascot went forward for the 2000 season. When the mascot character had been chosen it became time to find someone to actually wear the costume. Tryouts were scheduled and I chose to throw my hat in the ring. Keeping mind, I already had a full-time job with the team as it was. So I was only trying out for the chance to be the 2nd-string mascot, so to speak.
Tryouts took place one weekday afternoon around 5 pm. There were eight candidates for the gig, including myself. The team had rented a polar bear costume from a local costume shop. All eight of us would take turns in this same costume and would have five full minutes to entertain a group of about 30 kids aged 6-10 as best we could. We literally drew straws to decide the order in which we would all don the polar bear costume. The later in the order you were, the more sweat you had to deal with from those who had gone ahead of you. I drew spot number four. We each had five minutes worth of music that we would perform to. So we each entered the Twins' clubhouse to keep these kids as entertained as possible. Let me tell you this- five minutes is much longer than you think, especially when you're wearing a sweat-laden polar bear costume in front of a crowd of kids while dancing to who knows what songs I chose. It was probably "Get Down Tonight" by K.C. & The Sunshine Band.
I got the backup gig. I was the 2nd-string T.C. Bear. During home games I would add to my full-time gig by taking being one of the Mountain Dew Funatics. These are the guys who load the t-shirt gun in order to disperse said clothing items.
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On the rare occasion that I was inside the second costume I would do things like hospital visits, softball tournaments, school outings and parades of various types.
The costume isn't all that complicated. You step into the legs and get the straps settled on the top of your shoulders. Once you get that done, you get your shoes on. There are regular athletic shoes covered by the character's shoes which everyone sees. Given the fact that I'm the backup, I had to wear size 10 1/2 shoes even though I wear size 12s in real shoes.
Being in the costume is a huge thrill. It matters not how well the team itself is performing. Kids are always so happy to see you. But being a mascot is not what my friends would believe I could do. I'm usually quite low-key and being a mascot is far from low key. But the anonymity is what I got comfortable with and that allowed me to make the character lively and likable.
There are little tricks that one must learn when one becomes a large, smiling and dancing bear. Hydration is important. I lost about 10 pounds every time I did a performance. Outdoor gigs were higher weight loss numbers. My first parade was tough in that I didn't drink anything while on back of the convertible. The following day I was so dehydrated that I was nearly delirious. The next year I figured out a way to situate a water bottle inside the costume so that when I lowered my head I could easily reach the extra-long straw which ran into the bottle of ice water. This saved my bacon a number of times after my first failure.
Being a mascot can also be advantageous when a minor mistake is made on the highway. On one stop in Duluth, MN my assistant was driving us to a T.C. hospital visit. He made a minor mistake and ended up going in the wrong direction on a one-way street. When the officer pulled us over my assistant apologized profusely and informed the officer that we were on our way to the local hospital with the Twins' mascot. The officer looked at me in the passenger seat of our Dodge Durango and I realized that I needed to quickly produce some proof of this fact. So I reached into the back seat and exposed the face of the smiling bear which was in the carrying bag. He understood and offered to escort us to the entrance of the hospital. So we went from receiving a citation to receiving a police escort in a matter of minutes.
In my final appearance in the costume, I actually took the role of C.T. Bear, T.C.'s brother who lived in the forest and had never seen a baseball game before. So we located a large flannel shirt (size 4x) to accommodate the costume and a bright orange toque, which is a knit hat worn by many hunters in this part of the country during the cold weather. T.C. had hosted a celebrity home run hitting contest before every Saturday night home game. C.T. was going to be the celebrity this time. Now, I've been playing Sunday night softball since 1989, but never had I hit a ball while looking through the mouth of a character. I enlisted my good friend Nate to come down to the batting cages after the Twins game so that I could practice just a bit before the next night's contest. I didn't hit all that well, but that's how a bear who's never seen a baseball game should hit.
The following night was a great. I was introduced to the crowd as T.C.'s brother and performed in the home run contest as I should have. We made our way through the crowd all evening and it was probably the coolest thing I'd done in a mascot costume.
So, there you have it. It's a different world, to say the least. I don't know that ALL mascots have as much fun as I did, but if they don't they need to look for another gig.
Gorilla costume. Gorilla costume indeed.
And yes, it IS hot in there.
I'm just sayin'
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