“Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s the Muppet Show!” yelled an excited Kermit the Frog, as he popped his head out of the letter O, from the word ‘show’. Then, the tuba began the hilarious theme song to the beginning of the program. When I was a kid, I think the Muppet Show was one of my top 3 favorite shows on the tube.  Did you know that Jim Henson was a cartoonist as well as a muppeteer?  He drew his two dimensional muppet cartoons on paper and then made them come to life with a lot of foam material.  The ones that amazed me were the big ones.  Big Bird, Mr. Snuffy and Sweetums probably being the most popular. Wow, full grown people jumping into those big, heavy costumes and dancing around like life size cartoons. Oh, what fun!

I’ve always loved being the clown, which is funny in itself because my mom tells me that when I was a toddler, I was deathly…DEATHLY afraid of clowns.  I don’t ever recall being afraid of clowns, perhaps mimes, cause they never talked.. but clowns? Me? Absurd.  I had no fear of jesters or harlequinns.  Now, wasps and hornets, that’s a different story.  I was attacked by a swarm of those nasty stingers when I was 4, leaving permanent psychological damage. If we are at a picnic and you come up from behind and make buzzing noises, I WILL TAKE YOU OUT, and I don’t mean on a date.  You are going down.  Yep, just you, me and a can of raid.  There, you’ve been warned.

My life ambition as a youth was to be the Pittsburgh Parrot.  Well, you gotta play the minors before you can play the majors.  I’ve had an interesting run playing Steamer, the sports mascot for the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor league affiliate The Altoona Curve. And, I am still running, although it’s more like a really sluggish jog now.  This character, is supposed to be an old steam engine from back in the hey day of Choo choos. If you’d look at the mascot suit you’d probably think of other things he could be. And lots of colorful adjectives describing it. The green fuzzy fur throws the viewer a curve ball every time.  Steamer’s regular comparisons have been, “ a pregnant Gumby, an walking upside-down piece of broccoli, and my favorite, the green bong. 

One of my best friends was the very original Steamer, and I was his assistant in the beginning.  But a stupid mascot stunt forced him to retire the greens a long time ago.  Jumping off of the top of a dug out onto a padded dummy opponent, like Jimmy Superfly Snuka leaping from the top turnbuckle was hardly worth the 5 seconds of laughter.

When we were both brought on to the team to be the mascots, I recall the GM at the time saying to us, “do you class clowns remember all of the crazy antics that you used to perform back in high school, which about drove the nuns nuts?  Well, we want you to perform them on a regular basis, in front of 8,000 people, and we will pay you for it.”

Ha, and Sister Euphoria thought my pranks I used to pull were all worthless.  Pfft!

I used to think there was no such thing as a dumb question, until I heard hundreds of people ask me this same question over and over again.  Now, remember, this question is  usually asked at a hot Sunday afternoon game in July, when I’m sweating like the roadrunner at a coyote convention.  “Hey, does it ever get hot in there?”  Say it like Jeff Foxworthy for the extra twang I generally get.  Just to note, the nuns also used to tell me that if I kept up with my mischievous high jinks, that I would end up in a hot place. 

They were right.

I will tell you my number one way of staying cool.  Stay the hell out of the costume, that’s how!  No, really, here’s my big secret.  We have several walk-in refrigerators located throughout the ballpark. The biggest one has a sign on the door which reads STEAMER’S OFFICE.  Hanging out in that cool bin and lots of water is the key, baby.  Actually, I love the freezers better.  Ice pack?  Fan?  AC unit! Gatorade?  Those are for the milk toasts of mascots.

I have a ton of humorous stories that have happened to me while playing Steamer. It’s not easy being green.  TO BE CONTINUTED.