This is Mascot Mania. This is your opportunity to learn the basics of sports mascots: why do we have them and why do people want to be them?

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I spent a summer in fan experience at a baseball stadium and continued on with a similar job in the Fall. In both cases, I spent extensive time working with mascots. Tall, furry, anthropomorphic caricatures of animals and people that dance and run and give high fives.

People have two reactions when they see a mascot: they grin and say hello or they stiffen and run away. Yet some people get real kooky over mascots, and they’re like paparazzi, chasing mascots across the stadium to get one photo or one hug.

After spending months in this mascot-mania culture, working beside mascots, befriending the people inside mascot suits, I grew ever more curious. What is it about mascots that is so appealing or so jarring? What do we gain from having sports mascots and what is it like to be one of them? Is it fun? Gross? Does it impact your sense of identity? Is it like acting? I had so many questions. I needed to explore the concept of mascots

So, I did.

I reflected on my experiences with mascots and with stadium life, researched mascot presence in different kinds and levels of sports, and then I sat down with the mascot for the Tacoma Rainiers (Rhubarb) and got the scoop on what life’s like inside the suit.

This website is host to two writing samples in two rhetorical styles. One piece, Lost in the World, hopes to teach you in a way superior to typical textbook or academic-journal fashion. It hopes to provide an enjoyable, fun way to learn about mascots. The other piece, All Hail Drunk Fan, will make you think, will make you laugh, and will make you remember your own experiences of attending sporting events. It will use satire, irony, and sarcasm to manipulate my mascot focus and poke fun at baseball culture.

Hopefully through Mascot Mania, you learn something about mascotting or baseball games. Maybe you will realize this is your calling, that you finding this site is a sign that YOU are meant to be a mascot.

Go for it.

As you will read, mascotting has some serious benefits.