(Side note -- What is the appeal of alcohol? It doesn't taste good, costs more than other drinks and has a weird way of making you do stupid things and feeling like crap the next morning ... even if you don't remember the stupid things you did while you were drunk the night before. But I digress ...)
Now, most civilized human beings would think it's a bad thing to choke another person, and beyond that, it's certainly bad form to try to choke a mascot at a sporting event, but you'll be happy to know that while what Martin allegedly did is wrong ... the person who previously played Raymond was mean to Red Sox fans!
"(Previous Raymond Kelly) Frank is known in the mascot industry for being antagonistic, and during the years she played Raymond, it was the prime of Red Sox Nation, when the fans treated Tropicana Field like a home game.
'It was 60 percent Boston fans,” she said, adding they would treat Tampa like the minor leagues and get 'vacation drunk. 'So I would do anything I could to annoy the hell out of them.' ...
... Frank is known for 'an acerbic, smart-butt attitude to her characters,' said David Raymond, who played the original Phillie Phanatic for 17 years and now designs mascot brands and trains performers. 'She’s not working there anymore in part because of the in-your-face personality she developed.'”Yes, Ms. Frank apparently has a history. According to the article, she was fired as the Tampa Bay Lightning mascot after she attacked a Bruins fan with a Taser ... I mean Silly String. Sorry, it was Silly String. (She claims he was being drunk and obnoxious.)
There are a couple of points I'd like to make here. First of all, I understand that mascots can perhaps being annoying at times -- I, for one, am not a fan of the Stanford Tree, and my boy Poopsie was apparently traumatized by the Phillie Phanatic (yeah, Dave Raymond ... you) -- but if your temper operates on such a hair trigger that you feel the need to hit one, perhaps you need to engage in some self-reflection.
As for my other point, there's that whole thing Frank mentioned about Red Sox fans being drunk and obnoxious during the days when "taking over" someone's ballpark was something that they bragged about like they're the only fans ever to have done such a thing. (The Yankees say hi.)
Well, Frank had a little more to say about that.
"Frank played Raymond from 2004 to 2008, during the Sox glory years, and antagonizing Boston fans was the most thrilling thing to do behind the fur, and also the most dangerous. After the Sox won the World Series in 2004, she said, Boston fans invading the Trop became 'less knowledgeable, more obnoxious,' and some of the drunkest she’s ever seen. Raymond went at them, she said, but approached it like scaring someone in a haunted house -- quickly, before they threw a punch, because many people think it’s OK to punch a mascot."Apparently, there's a lot of self-reflection required. Who knew?
As someone who lives among Red Sox fans, some of whom I'm pretty sure honestly believe I have a mental disorder for being a Yankees fan, I can tell you that they don't realize how badly they blew it in 2004. The sports world was their oyster. They won their first World Series in 86 years, vanquishing their ancient rivals in dramatic, historic fashion along the way, something that traumatized me the way the Phanatic traumatized Poopsie.
And so what did they do? Well, a lot of them went from zero to obnoxious in less time that it takes to chant the "Je" in "Jeter sucks," something which, by the way, even though I've heard it for years, I've never heard anyone admit to. "Oh no, I don't approve of that sort of thing," they say. "I respect Jeter!"
If I may over-generalize for a moment, I'd say the worst offenders are the bandwagon jumpers, the ones I call "lifelong fans since 2004" and others call "pink hats," which is probably sexist because pink hats implies women and believe me, the ranks of newbie, uninformed Red Sox fans include lots of guys. They're the ones for whom 2004 was not the joyful, satisfying culmination of a journey, but a coronation proving their awesomeness, and it has only gotten worse since then.
In short, the most obnoxious among Red Sox fans ... like a guy who would allegedly get stupid drunk and attack a mascot ... are what they believe Yankees fans are like.
Just don't say that out loud.
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