View Gallery: Photos: Mascot Hall of Fame a wacky first of its kind A bobblehead of Screech with the Washington Nationals. A piece of a dinosaur egg, from which the Colorado Rockies' Dinger hatched. The shoes worn by Clutch, the bear of the Houston Rockets. Hundreds of items are on display, collected from mascots through the decades. "It's why these mascots are important, why they are unsung heroes." "That’s where, if you’ve got a soul, you’ll come out with a tear in your eye," Hernandez said. "He had a lot of fun." And there is so much to do, it can't possibly fit into one day, she said.īesides the interactive exhibits is the hall of fame portion of the museum. Inside an auditorium, short movies are shown about mascots present and past. "We came here that fist day and we liked it so much we actually did the membership," said Mateo's mom, Adrianne Alvarez. It was their second trip to the museum in less than a month. Mateo was at the hall of fame with his mom and dad, from the southeast side of Chicago. "It's cool," said Mateo, whose favorite mascot is Clark, the bear of the Chicago Cubs. He loved the exhibit where he got to build a life-sized Reggy, watching the fur spin and purple fur coat his body with each pull of the lever. Mateo Medina, 7, couldn't get enough of Reggy. There is a huge mascot head to try on.Īnd there is Reggy Funfurhuggin, the mascot of the Mascot Hall of Fame who is the center of much of the fun. There is an area to build a mascot, endless options. There is a game to test your aim with the T-shirt cannon, a must-have skill for any mascot. With little fanfare, mascots spend their days visiting sick children in hospitals, teaching kind lessons in schools, dancing around nursing homes. Often, being a mascot is a full-time career. "When you say 'mascot,' most people think of a guy in a costume standing on the sideline being silly, doing a cartwheel, bumping into someone," said Raymond. They should honor the mascots who, beyond their shenanigans on the field, do great work, unsung hero type of work off the field. We were blown away at how seriously people were taking this."Īn idea crept into Raymond and his fellow mascots' heads. "I got all kinds of calls from national news (outlets) asking about violent activity against mascots. They wanted him arrested," said David Raymond, the original Phillie Phanatic, known widely in mascot circles as the leader of the pack. “I just looked over and saw our wieners in a wad," Ned Yost, then the Brewers manager, said at the time.įans booed Simon's mistreatment of the sausage. The incident became a rallying cry for mascot rights. The hot dog tripped over Guido and fell, too. The Brewers' sausage race commenced with four oversized links, seven-feet tall, sprinting around the field.Īs the sausages came by the Pirates’ dugout, first baseman Randall Simon took his bat and popped the Italian sausage named Guido on the head. ![]() There was a baseball game in July of 2003 between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Pittsburgh Pirates. We are it."Īnd there may be nothing more fabulous than what is inside of this hall of fame.īut first, it's important to remember the mascot tragedy that had to take place before this hall of fame could be born. Is Cooperstown the only baseball hall of fame? Yes. "Ummmmm, yeah," Hernandez says with a look that's a mixture of disbelief and annoyance, taking a long, dramatic pause to stare hard. Don't make the mistake of asking executive director Orestes Hernandez if this is the only one around. It is the only Mascot Hall of Fame in the United States and, quite possibly, the world. It opened last month and people are flocking to this city of 5,000 to see the furry version of Cooperstown, the silly remake of Canton, Ohio.Įvery inch of the 25,000-square-foot building pays homage to the over-sized, funny creatures that are the faces of professional and college sports. They are here in Whiting, in front of their shrine, the long awaited - 14 years in the making - Mascot Hall of Fame. MORE: Feeling blue? Colts mascot focuses on giving backĭOYEL: Doyel: Butler's bulldog mascot gives admission news to kid who beat cancer SUBSCRIBE: Get 3 months of IndyStar for $3 Benny the Bull stands spinning a basketball on a fingertip. The Chicago White Sox's Southpaw is ready to swing, a bat propped on his shoulder. Slider of the Cleveland Indians is lying on the cement, looking as if he's just taken a tumble. The air is filled with the puffing of gray steam. The buildings around are factory-dingy. WHITING, Ind.- The massive, brightly colored mascots seem perfectly out of place, plopped amid an oil refinery on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. ![]() Watch Video: Mascot rights are a thing, and you can see why in Whiting, Ind.
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