The Invisible Yankee

The Untold Story of the New York Yankees’ Forgotten Mascot

By

Rick Ford The Original “Dandy”

Table of Contents ______

Disclaimer: Author’s Note 2

Chapter One: “Would a Mascot be Good for the Yankees?” 3

Chapter Two: “Welcome to the Majors.” 13

Chapter Three: “Scared? Yeah, You Bet I Was.” 25

Chapter Four: “I Would Have to Wing It.” 47

Chapter Five: “It’s Not Here in the Contract.” 57

Chapter Six: “Those Things Don’t Belong on the Field.” 73

Chapter Seven: “It’s a Temporary Setback.” 85

Chapter Eight: “What is that Thing?” 93

Chapter Nine: “The World According to Larry.” 108

Chapter Ten: “Thurman Will Never be Too Far from Us.” 116

Chapter Eleven: “I Stole Your Heart Mascot!” 127

Chapter Twelve: “It’s All Over.” 145

Chapter Thirteen: “Welcome to Madison Square Garden.” 149

Chapter Fourteen: “No Dandy…No Check.” 172

Epilogue: “We Made Too Many Wrong Mistakes.” 177

List of Current Major League Baseball Mascots – Chronological 184

List of Current Major League Baseball Mascots – Alphabetical 187

Bibliography 189

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Author’s Note

The story you are about to read is based on actual events. Some of the names and addresses have been changed to protect the privacy of the individual. Sections of the narrative have been reconstructed from memory into fictional conversations; however the recollections of how they transpired and the essence of what was said is true. ‐R.F.

“In baseball, you don’t know nothing.” ‐ Yogi Berra

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CHAPTER ONE:

“Would a Mascot be Good for the Yankees?”

Mascot – n. A person, animal or object believed to bring good luck, esp. one kept as the symbol of an athletic team or organization. ‐The American Heritage Dictionary‐

Yankees Old­Timers’ Day – 2017 Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY

Jeremy Schapp, host of ESPN’s E‐60, is interviewing Hall of Famers, Goose Gossage and Reggie Jackson along with 1978 World Series MVP, Bucky Dent on the Yankee Stadium field before the Old‐Timers’ Ceremony. He is holding a small photograph.

Jeremy Schapp: “What do you remember about Dandy, the great Yankee mascot?”

Bucky Dent: “What mascot? I don’t…we had a mascot?”

Goose Gossage: (Eying a small 3x5 photograph that Jeremy has handed him; he laughs with amazement.) “I’ll be damned. He looks like Yosemite Sam.”

Reggie Jackson: “I don’t think it went over too well, because I’ve already forgotten.”

The Present

I almost trashed the email thinking it was spam, but my eyes caught the two words in the subject line stopping my fingers from clicking the mouse. “Dandy Answers.” Could this be Dandy, the Dandy I knew or was this a phishing scam? If I

4 clicked on the attachment, would my information be hacked? Dandy and I met over forty years ago and although our time was brief, we became more than friends. We were partners. You can’t let down a guy who introduced you to Reggie Jackson. That one click opened not only a curiosity about a forgotten mascot erased from the memories of players and the annals of a storied franchise, but it flooded my mind with memories from a slice of New York Yankees otherwise glorious history that nobody knows but me. After reading the following email, I realized it was time to break the silence. This is his story.

‐‐‐‐‐Original Message‐‐‐‐‐‐ To: [email protected] Subject: Dandy Answers From:

Dear Mr. Ford,

My brother recently recalled that the New York Yankees had a mascot named Dandy. My brother, sister and I have become obsessed with the revelation and decided to do some research which has led us to believe that you were Dandy. Can you confirm or deny this fact? Were you really heckled and banished to the upper deck? Do you have any pictures or memorabilia that cannot be found on the Internet? How were you picked to be Dandy? And lastly, why do you believe the Yankees have tried so hard to cover up the fact that Dandy really did exist and simply sweep that part of their history under the rug?

Thank you for your time and I certainly hope this didn’t creep you out too much.

Yankee Brian

Yes, Yankee Brian, I was Dandy, the first and last official mascot for the New York Yankees. After all these years, that’s what creeps me out or should I say, it’s just plain weird because you would think the Yankees would have had another mascot by now, right? Wrong. I’m just as surprised as you are. What happened? Where did he go? Thereby hangs a tale and it’s a chapter in Yankees history that has gone unwritten until now.

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I made my mascot debut at the old Yankee Stadium in front of a few selected VIP’s on June 27th, 1979. The Yankee brass named the 7‐foot tall, pinstriped puppet, after the song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” However Yankee fans never knew what to call him because sadly, he never had a coming‐out party. Although the Yankees had a contract with the creators of Dandy to lease him for another two years at a cost of $10,000 dollars per year, sightings were as sporadic as Bigfoot and he vanished forever after the 1981 season. He was nothing but bad luck, lost opportunity and unrealized expectations, a tainted symbol for a storied franchise. If fate had been on his side though, I still believe that Dandy could have been somebody instead of a bust. But is it really that noteworthy for people to know about a failed and forgotten major‐league mascot? Why would anybody care about a mascot that was a bomb? Well… there is an aura about that particular team. Sportscaster, Bob Costas has said: “The New York Yankees are the most successful sports franchise on the planet and will be forever woven into the fabric of American culture.” The Yankee brand is recognized for tradition, excellence and pride. So it’s not surprising to spot people from around the globe sporting a Yankees cap with its familiar crossed NY logo. Not only does the logo represent an American baseball team with a legendary roster of players both past and present, the likes of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the leaders of the famed Murderer’s Row of the 1920’s, but the cap also symbolizes a myriad of things to millions of people who aren’t even baseball fans. The team was established in 1903, but officially named the Yankees in 1913, so with over a hundred years of marketing behind them, you can understand why it’s one of the most popular fashion statements in the world. I recently went up to a guy who was wearing a Yankees cap and asked, “Hey, you a Yankee fan?” He said, “No, I don’t follow baseball. It’s more of a hip‐hop thing.” In fact, Jay‐Z, arguably the most famous rapper in the world wears a Yankees cap as part of his iconic image. He raps in his hit song with Alicia Keys, Empire State of Mind; “I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can.” He just might be right.

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Yet amidst their twenty‐seven World Series championships, forty pennants, twenty‐six Hall of Famers and record‐breaking accomplishments, in 1979 the New York Yankees contracted this experiment that was a dud and people who aren’t even Yankee fans are curious to find out why it fizzled. They don’t understand why this piece of history has been seemingly swept under the rug and kept in the dark for decades. They may think because Dandy was such a disaster, the Yankees shipped him off to the island of misfit mascots and they don’t want to talk about him. Who wants to rehash a debacle about a mascot that never amounted to much? What’s in it for them except embarrassment? But here’s the thing. When I made my debut running around the diamond at Yankee Stadium on that sunny June day in ’79, Al Rosen who was the President of the Yankees at the time, Reggie Jackson and Goose Gossage who were on the disabled list taking batting practice, the marketing team for the Yankees and Dandy’s creators, all of them, got a big kick out of the mascot. Memories may have dimmed by time but on that day, everybody was enthusiastic and spirits were high. The fact that Dandy never was explored and exploited is a real shame because there was a lot of good there.

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