In Memoriam

Memorial Day found me today at a baseball game in Texas, complete with the national anthem, swearing in of new military members, beer, nine innings of baseball of course, and annoying mascots.

Something I had never really considered until today was that the teams probably don't dryclean the mascot uniforms very often. When the noisome thing passed by, the odor was somewhere between a fetid old box of moldy rags and the body smell of whatever poor soul had to dance around in the heat with that thick polyester-acrylic death suit on. Of course, there were little kids sitting in a section directly behind our group that were repeatedly hailing down this ragged behemoth during the game. It was all very distracting while trying to focus on the actual game (and smelly), but cute I guess.

I tried to draw a parallel to the closest things similar to all this in antiquity. One can almost imagine colosseum gladitorial teams having a horseheaded mascot like the one from today running up and down the stands, knocking over people's beers so they have to buy new ones. Maybe it was all fine, because everything probably smelled bad back then. But really, what is a colorful polyester horse going to add to a gripping life or death combat among circus animals and fire?

Are you going to cheer just a little bit louder? Honest?

Perhaps the ancients' version of North American car racing (NASCAR), the chariot races of the Circus Maximus, had their own goofy mascots. It would be fun to think that the chariots might be covered with advertising like the racecars of today. Pit crews frantically changing the metal bands around spiked wheels, women with excessively low tube tops with short blue denim cutoffs wandering around.

The game actually ended up being not all that interesting. Even without life or death gladatorial struggles on the baseball diamond today, it was good to be out on a nice day doing what they say is America's pastime. But next time, I think I'll roll like the emperor and get everyone to pitch in for a suite.