Not So Dandy

How did I not know this? Good question. In the late 1970s, the Yankees introduced a mascot named Dandy:

[T]he Yankees agreed to lease Dandy for three years and $30,000 and made plans to unveil him in late July.

Then disaster struck.

Want to know whom to blame for Dandy's premature demise? Look no further than the San Diego Chicken and Lou Piniella.

On July 10, 1979, the Chicken—on sabbatical from the Padres, his regular employer—was working for the Seattle Mariners at the Kingdome, where he threw a hex on Yankees pitcher Ron Guidry as he warmed up. Mr. Piniella, the Yankees' left fielder at the time, considered this to be in poor taste, so he chased the Chicken and, lacking apparent success, fired his glove at him in a fit of rage.

In the wake of that fiasco, Mr. Steinbrenner supported Mr. Piniella by telling reporters that mascots had no place in baseball—this, just two weeks before the Yankees were to introduce their own.

Steinbrenner banished Dandy to the upper deck, where he roamed for a short while before going extinct. It didn't help that Dandy's mustache was meant to resemble that of Thurman Munson, the team's guiding light, who died in a plane crash just a few days after Dandy made his first appearance.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Cardboard Gods)