It was “Chicken and the Egg” Day at the Coliseum, sponsored by the California Dairy Council. Wait. That can’t be right, can it? There’s a California Dairy Council, really? And they do things like sponsor antics at Major League Baseball games? Well, I guess they must have in the late summer of 1985, if at no other time.
During the 6th inning, I would go out on the field dressed as a chicken. I would love to say, “go out on the field dressed as a chicken in front of thousands upon thousands of people,” but it was an Oakland A’s home game. I’m sure at least a few dozen watched this travesty first hand.
In the mid-1980s, I parlayed my love of baseball and a wtf? inside connection into a job working for the Oakland Athletics baseball club. I was part of the “A’s Assistants” program (don’t look for it; it’s not there any more). We wore loud, bright yellow jackets and wheeled handicapped fans around the ballpark during games. I often attended to blind folks in the skybox with the radio feed. This program was fairly progressive for the time, but not well considered. Most games we didn’t have much to do and anyone older than the teens employed by the program could see this program was more of a PR move than an honest attempt at bridging gaps in the community.
Personally, I didn’t care about the politics. And I didn’t care that the mid-80s Athletics were constantly that level of “just enough above awful never to make wholesale changes.” Consecutive 77 win and 85 loss seasons will do that. I loved being at the ballpark. I loved going to A’s games. That they paid me? Just relish on my pilfered press box hotdog.
It was mid-September and the season was winding down when the Kansas City Royals came to town. The 1985 Royals, of course, would win the World Series, not that anyone could guess such at the time. They were good, sure, but … well, the 80s were replete with mediocre baseball champions: 87 Twins, 88 Dodgers, anyone? Makes 
no difference. The receptionist caught my attention as I got in to work that Friday evening with, “do you want to be a San Diego Chicken tomorrow?”
The question didn’t make any sense, of course. There was only one San Diego Chicken, and whoever wore the costume was the gold standard for mascotry. The San Diego Chicken was both hilarious and irreverent, often crossing lines between fan and entertainer. He was exclusive to San Diego for years, but as the paychecks summoned, he started taking his show on the road to help out whatever team threw money his way. I’d known weeks in advance, of course, that the less-San Diego, more, now, Mercenary Chicken would be here tomorrow for the day game. Was I being asked to assume this role? How could I? And my brain said, “DON’T QUESTION IT, JUST SAY ‘YES!!’ “
So here’s the deal-io: the Chicken has a sketch. Yes. This is a mascot with aspirations well above his station. He has many sketches. I would be part of one (1). During the sixth inning, the Chicken would unleash “Robot Chickens” (no affiliation with the Adult Swim show still decades away at this time) on the opponents. Four Chickens, each identical to the original except with a “wind-up mechanism” where a “back feather” should be, storm the field and each “puts the whammy” on a given member of the opposition.
The Royals didn’t lack for infield targets, 3B George Brett was a future Hall-of-Famer, the Pitcher that day was rookie phenom Bret Saberhagen, who would win that afternoon on his way to the Cy Young. Me? I’m a personality guy. Forget those immortals. I chose 1B Steve Balboni, the kind of man for whom words like “oaf” and “lummox” were invented.
The plan was as follows: in the bottom of the sixth as the Royals took infield, the Chicken would do antics or whatever and then pull out something 
resembling a giant remote control. That’s our cue to go out on the field of play, put some sort of hex on our given target, get “thwarted,” whatever that means, and crawl back from whence we came. Worth note that foul territory is larger by a factor of two in the Oakland Coliseum than any other stadium in the game. I would be crawling a while.
I was so excited that morning. I called everyone I knew — well, maybe not everyone, but several: “get to the game! This is going to happen! Bring a camera!” I was actually nervous when we met for costume fitting. Hey, there’s the Chicken guy in the flesh. Wow. Huh. He’s kinda short. I didn’t see that one coming. Nor the porn moustache. Meh. No matter. What’s on the outside is what counts.
It was at this moment that I noticed everyone selected for this “sketch” was also short. Like Tom Cruise short, only shorter. I’m no giant, but at 5’ 9”, I was going to be a freaking huge chicken. I didn’t really fit in the costume. I remember hoping that it didn’t strain and rip. Somehow, I managed to squeeze the damn thing on not unlike a middle-aged man trying to prove he can still fit in his letterman jacket. The stitching stretched taut, but held. And when I put the head on, I couldn’t see a thing; it was simply made for a smaller head. The rules were clear, however: “when the head goes on, it doesn’t come off. Not at all, not for any reason. Not until you are back at this exact same spot in the locker room.”
We hung out in the Royals locker room during the top of the sixth. Mark Gubicza, the winner of the previous evening, showed us how to throw a curve ball. And then it was time.
In the bowels of the Coliseum, there is a long, dark tunnel that goes from locker room to field. Dunno exactly how long. 75 feet? 100 feet maybe? Felt like forever. Being the largest, I was last in our Chicken chorus line. I couldn’t see anything. Suddenly, my mind flashes on the part in To Kill a Mockingbird where Scout in the giant ham costume and gets attacked in the dark. I calm myself, “you’ve got a job to do, Jim. This is bigger than you now.”
At some point the dark blur became a light blur and I knew we’d reached the field. I couldn’t see much ahead, but I could 
see my feet, my enormous chicken feet. Hey, I’m a Chinese delicacy. My path went behind the screen in back of the playing field, over towards the A’s dugout on the left and on to the field from there. I can see just enough to follow the guy ahead of me and little more. And then when I got to the A’s dugout, something grabbed me. I couldn’t move ahead. Two thoughts raced through my mind. The first was, “oh no! This is it! Scout is in the ham costume! Scout in the ham costume! Something horrible is going to happen here!” The second was, “stay in character. You are a robot. Behave like one.” The second thought won, and so I proceeded to move my legs forward again and again mechanically without making any progress. Finally, whoever grabbed me let me go.
And, so, delayed, I went and did my Chicken thing. I still couldn’t see. I think I put a hex on Steve Balboni, but for all I know it was a giant soda machine in a Royals cap. Some buzzer went off and that was the signal to get on all fours and crawl back. I was encouraged to crawl faster; there was a major league baseball game to play, after all.
I stood up again about 20 feet in front of the dugout where we’d emerged. I knew he said, “don’t take the head off.” I knew the rules. But I also had to know what held me up the first place. As I approach the nexus where A’s dugout meets backstop, I lifted up the head just enough to get a peek, and find myself standing beak to chest with enormous A’s slugger Dave Kingman. HA!!
Now if you’re not a fan of baseball history, the name Dave Kingman won’t mean much to you, so let me add that the colorful and oft troubled career of “Kong,” a notorious malcontent and “prankster,” would end the following year unceremoniously after Kingman sent a dead rat to a reporter named Susan Fornoff. Shortly after the stunt, the A’s fined
Kingman and released him and his 442 career home runs into the wild, never to play in the major leagues again. When his forced retirement took place, the only players who had hit more career home runs than Dave Kingman were already in the Hall of Fame. Kingman would never achieve that honor.
The San Diego Chicken guy had a few more years left in him, but I don’t believe he ever returned to Oakland. My days as an A’s assistant were also numbered; the group was liquidated at the end of the year and replaced with something a little more accountable, which made sense. And yet, I’ll never forget my moment in the giant ham costume. Er, as a San Diego Chicken robot.
No actual chickens were harmed in this story. Can’t verify the same of the rat.
