by The Phillie Phanatic
I’m a mascot. Yes, I know you find this inherently funny. I get paid to wear a ridiculous outfit and then go and start pretend fights with umpires. I get why people don’t take me seriously. I get why people find it humorous when a five-year-old comes up and head-butts me in the nuts. Ha ha. Hysterical. If it weren’t happening to me, I’d laugh too. I know you pros don’t think that my job is all that difficult compared to yours.
But I don’t think you understand just how fucking hot it is in here.
I’m not kidding. Being inside this outfit is like landing on the surface of Venus. I mean, look at this thing. Fucking look at it. It’s made out of 90 percent Styrofoam and 10 percent regenerated cellulosic fiber. Just screams breathable, doesn’t it? MRI machines are less constrictive than this god-awful piece of shit. I smell like a tackle box when I take it off.
Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s bullshit that baseball players have to wear gray polyester pants in the summer. That doesn’t look like fun. But dude, I work in a fucking coffin. You have a dugout to go to for cooling off. You get a bench to rest on. Shit, you even get free Gatorade. Me? I gotta stay out on the field in the sun the whole goddamn game. And field temperatures in Philly can hit 120 in August. Do I get water? Do I even get ice chips to suck on? No. Sometimes I hallucinate. Just yesterday, I saw Jimmy Rollins turn into a Creamsicle. That shit ain’t right.
And, on top of that, I have to dance. That’s right. I have to remain in constant, gyrating motion during the course of the entire game. If I stop once, just once, everyone in the crowd boos and throws peanut shells at me. It’s as if they’re shooting at my feet. Oh, and I can’t take my headpiece off either. No, no, we’d hate to ruin the magic for little Johnny out in the stands, watching the game with his father on the one weekend a month Daddy has visitation privileges.
And God forbid I fart in this thing. Seriously, one time I farted in the first inning of a game of a doubleheader and nearly died of methane poisoning four hours later. This thing is like a fart incubator. Farts can’t leave here. They can’t disperse into the air like a standard fart. Even the most innocuous “Psst! I got a secret!” fart has punishing long-term staying power here. I served in Iraq and was subject to numerous germ warfare drills. And it never got as bad as the shit that goes on in here.
I can’t even scratch my nuts. Yeah, I see you guys grabbing your junk during the game. Christ, how I’d love to do that. Half the game, my balls are stuck on the roof of my taint. What sweet relief it would be to just pry them off and let them hang back down. But no, if I scratch my balls, suddenly I’m some perv who wants to molest kids. Jesus. None of these people have had to walk around for two hours squeezing their own testicles between their legs with every alternate step. They have no idea what kind of suffering I go through in here. None. I hate them.
Even if I could scratch my nuts, I can’t. There’s a sixteen-inch layer of padding directly in front of my crotch, and I’m wearing gloves. A little nut scratch does nothing for me. I gotta retract my arm out of the sleeve and then go down into the outfit to hit pay dirt. But then I got my right arm hanging limp on the costume, and then people stare at me like, “What’s wrong with Mr. Phanatic’s arm? Did he have a stroke?”
There’s more. See this horn? You think that’s where my mouth is, right? Wrong! My eyes see out of it. That’s right, they put the eyehole at the end of a very long tube at the center of my face. Why not just fuse my pupils together and be done with it? I’ve now named all the pores on the bridge of my nose. This one’s named Jim.
I don’t even know why the Phillies have a mascot. Kids are terrified of me. What kid isn’t going to shit his pants at the sight of a green space alien with blue eyebrows rushing in to give him a hug? I may as well carry a cleaver around with me wherever I go.
So when you see me dancing out there, just remember: I may not be a pro athlete like you, but I am an athlete. A big, green, sweaty athlete who needs to rub his entire body with prescription Certain Dri prior to each game. Remember that I’m constantly on the verge of pulling a Korey Stringer out there. Be nice to me. Take pity. Pat me on my poofy tail. I need the support. And fresh towels.