Dance Like Everybody’s Watching!: The Weird and Wonderful World of Sporting Mascots

NAME DINGER

TEAM COLORADO ROCKIES

SPORT BASEBALL

YEARS ACTIVE 1994–PRESENT

STYLE A CROSS BETWEEN A TRICERATOPS AND A TELETUBBY

FAMOUS FOR BEING ‘BORN’ OUT OF A DINOSAUR EGG ON THE FIELD

Sometimes you just have to take your hat off. The Colorado Rockies are a relatively new organisation, playing their first Major League Baseball game in 1993, and had to rent a stadium while their own was being built. During construction, workers found a number of dinosaur fossils on the site, most notably a large triceratops skull. This also happened to be around the time the Rockies were deciding on their new mascot, so in some ways they were offered no choice.

And thus, Dinger was born. For those of you not familiar with baseball slang, ‘Dinger’ might sound like a slightly risqué name for a gentleman’s personal area, but it is in fact slang for ‘home run’, and since Coors Field, the aforementioned fossil-hosting home of the Rockies, is about 5,200 feet above sea level and the thin air makes it easier to hit the ball very, very far, the name of their mascot becomes obvious too.

What isn’t quite so obvious is the way Dinger – a version of Barney the Dinosaur, but with the wide, vacant eyes of someone who has just been smacked in the head with a plank of wood – was introduced to the world. On the field before a game, Dinger emerged from a giant egg, helped by two ‘doctors’, who, and call us cynical here, we suspect did not have the relevant medical qualifications, then proceeded to stumble around the place like, well, someone who’s just been smacked in the head with a plank of wood. The thing is Barn … sorry, Dinger, just doesn’t really do anything. He’s not fun. He’s not intimidating. He’s not even that cuddly. He is, in the words of one fan, ‘a bit of a dweeb’.

Joe Robbins/Getty Images

NAME GILBERT THE GULL

TEAM TORQUAY UNITED

SPORT FOOTBALL

YEARS ACTIVE 1977–PRESENT

STYLE HAPPY-GO-LUCKY GULL, BUT WITH A BIT OF A TEMPER

FAMOUS FOR ALLEGEDLY CALLING HIS OWN FANS A VERY BAD WORD INDEED

On the face of things, there’s nothing that unusual about Gilbert the Gull, mascot of Torquay United, perennial strugglers in the lowest tiers of the English football pyramid. He’s a large, colourful, furry representation of the club’s nickname who goofs around on the touchline before games. So far, so standard.

However, this Gull apparently has a bit of … edge to him. In 2014 Torquay were playing Grimsby Town and the atmosphere among their fans wasn’t exactly convivial, given they were being handed a sound thrashing. Gilbert went over to ask where the noise had gone, one thing led to another and he – allegedly – ended up calling his own fans a bad word. The big, bad word. Yes, that big, bad word.

‘He called us a “bunch of c***s”,’ complained one fan, ‘and after a few words were exchanged he waddled off back to the Family Stand.’ Another fan added: ‘The mascot was – and no doubt about it – telling fans to come onto the pitch for a fight.’ Steve Jegat, the man who played Gilbert at the time, denied dropping the C-bomb, but he was temporarily suspended from duties by the club. ‘Gilbert has been spoken to,’ solemnly intoned the club’s chief executive, and the fact he said ‘Gilbert’ rather than ‘Steve’ conjures up the delicious image of the Gull, in full costume, sitting forlornly in an office somewhere as he’s being given a stern talking-to.

Pete Norton/Getty Images

NAME KING CAKE BABY

TEAM NEW ORLEANS PELICANS

SPORT BASKETBALL

YEARS ACTIVE 2009–PRESENT

STYLE GIGANTIC, LAMINATED CHILD’S DOLL BROUGHT TO HORRIFYING LIFE

FAMOUS FOR POSSIBLY BEING THE INSPIRATION FOR A CHARACTER IN THE FILM HAPPY DEATH DAY

If you’ve ever seen Toy Story 3, it’s OK to admit that Big Baby, one of the film’s primary villains, along with the bitter and twisted Lotso, is pretty scary. Why wouldn’t you find a doll with a lazy eye brought to life who threatens Andy, Buzz and chums just a little bit intimidating? Well, if you were a little alarmed by one of Pixar’s more unsettling creations, visiting the New Orleans Pelicans NBA team is probably not recommended.

This particular inspiration for nightmares is born from a local tradition in which a small doll is hidden inside a limited number of king cakes – doughy, ring-shaped items of confectionery – around Mardi Gras time, with whoever finds the doll being granted good luck. While that raises a number of health and safety/choking-related issues, more terrifying than the prospect of getting some plastic caught in your gullet is this thing, who looks like it sustains itself on the pulsating fear from anyone it looks at with its bug eyes, growing stronger and stronger as you become more and more terrified.

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