OCTOBER 11, 2006
THE MAN BEHIND THE MASCOT
LONG BEACH, CA

I've been to a million sporting events in my life, seen mascots of all shapes and sizes, but never really cared about who or what might be lurking beneath the costume.

That all changed the day we met Albert Maya, AKA "ARBY I", the friendly, feathered mascot of the Armada, a Double-A Minor League Baseball team located in Long Beach, California.

OK, perhaps that last sentence is a little over the top. It wasn't exactly a life-altering experience, and I can't exactly say that I spend a whole lot of time these days thinking about mascots in my free time, but I've got to say, our day with Albert was more interesting than I thought it would be.

Albert is what you might call a professional mascot. Dude's been "scotting" (industry lingo) for like six years. Figuring that he can't be any older than 25, you're talking about roughly a quarter of your life in a costume (that's almost as much as Elton John.)

And let me add that at the end of the day, we had the di"stink"t pleasure of smelling the inside of the bird head -- Moscato d' Nasti -- a cross between a dead fish and the Knicks locker room! I just can't help but think that the most difficult part of the job has got to be psyching yourself into putting on that stinky head every night.

It's kind of like jumping into a cold pool. Only it's not. It's a stinky bird head.

And another thing ... It never occurred to me that one might be a mascot for a baseball team and a hockey team at the same time, like our friend Albert. It's not as though I actually thought that the mascots were real (lie) or that they actually lived at the stadium (lie), but I did think of them as having loyalty to a team. Am I being ridiculous here? I mean, how would you feel if you found out that your team mascot was seeing another team? (Insert dumb cheerleader joke here.) Well, anyway, it turns out that Albert pulls double duty and no one cares ... except me.

After the baseball game was over (they lost), Albert coerced us into helping him lead what he was hoping would be the world's largest game of "Simon Says." To get into the Guinness Book of World Records we would need to play with 1152 people for approximately 10 minutes.

I think we ended up playing with 10 people for 11:52.

Apparently it was close enough for New Guinea's Book of World Records, so we're happy about that.

Being a mascot is an art. It's not just something you wake up one morning and decide to do ... I have no idea if that's right; it just sounds like it should be.

What I do know, however, is that Albert is a real character ... with or without his stinky bird head on. And in our world, all characters are welcome.

Go Armada.

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