Went to Long Island today to take part in the Long Island Ducks Mascot Day game at Citibank Park in Central Islip. But on the way, I did a couple of geocaches:
YEM26 - Lister Park (New York)
Mac-97 Bay Park (New York )
YEM27 - Uniondale Quickie (New York)
I ran into Red 5 and daughter at the first cache site. They were waiting for a muggle to leave, so once the coast was clear, we did the cache together. After the third cache, I figured it was time for lunch. I wanted to go to the LJS/A&W restaurant in West Islip, but when I got there, I found that it was all boarded up. How disappointing. I don't go to a restaurant for a couple of months and they go out of business! So I just grabbed a wrap and some chips from the 7-Eleven in West Islip, and headed over to the ballpark.
From what I gather, Mascot Day is a special day when the LI Ducks open the stadium to outside mascots and hold a bunch of mascot games between innings of the baseball game. I did the gig under the banner of
rapidtrabbit and Friends. Besides our group, there were some radio station mascots, the GEICO Gecko, and of course QuackerJack, the LI Ducks mascot. There was also a guy whose business was hooking up mascots with paid gigs. It could be an interesting way to get a bit of side income if I lived in Long Island where he operates, but I got his business card anyway.Anyway, we all gathered at the West Gate. Then the guy in charge of the mascots checked our names on a list, handed us a ticket and a schedule of events each, and guided us to the changing room, which was at the end of the building.
They provided pizza, so I probably didn't need to eat lunch beforehand. But I had a slice anyway. Then at 4:20pm or so, we all got into our fursuits and headed down to the field for the pre-game event, which was dodgeball. We were already pre-assigned to two teams. During the game, I actually tagged QuackerJack on the butt, but QuackerJack was supposed to win so it was conveniently not noticed. Heh. On the 3rd inning, we were in the Mascot Race. Once again, we split up into two groups: one group would run around the bases in a race and the other group, which I joined, would try to distract the runners. So that just got into a confusing, but funny, mess at the end.
I don't know what happened to that last game we were supposed to be in, so for the rest of the ballgame, we just went out a bunch of times to interact with the crowd. Hoo boy! It was wall-to-wall kids asking for hugs, hi-5s, and autographs. They loved us and were generally better-behaved than some other gigs I've been to. (Well, okay, there were some complaints from other mascots but I think I missed the worst of it.) I also visited the luxury suites upstairs escorted by
jbadger. That was a peek into the lifestyles of the rich After the game was over, we packed up and headed out in a mini-convoy of cars. First we stopped at the train station to drop
bondage_husky off. Then we went to the Hauppauge Palace Diner for dinner.All in all, it was a fun mascot experience. I'll probably do this again next year, but we'll see.