Morning wood: Stay classy, San Diego Chicken
In what can only be described as the most troubling sports story of 2009, rumors continue to swirl that the San Diego Chicken may well be on his last legs this year.
Ted Giannoulas, who’s played Clark Kent to the Chicken’s Superpoultry for four decades, has openly discussed hanging up his feathery frock of late. Given our undying passion for mascots around here, you can imagine that this story has been met with nervousness, anxiety, and in some cases, full-blown panic attacks.
So here’s a crazy thought. If and when Giannoulas finally does decide to retire (he’s already on record as saying he’s not passing the torch … more on that in a moment), doesn’t the Chicken deserve a smidgen of consideration for Cooperstown? Now we know the mere mention of such blasphemy has George Will and Bob Costas throwing up in the backs of their mouths, but let’s think about it for a second. Before the San Diego Chicken (or as he was known in his early days, the KGB Chicken) came along, watching a Major League Baseball game in person amounted to, well, watching a Major League Baseball game. Save for the occasional “Roll Out the Barrel” organ rendition, attending a baseball game wasn’t exactly the most scintillating of experiences.
In addition to spawning a whole new race of mutated animal mascots, the Chicken played a significant role in moving Major League Baseball from a sporting event to an entertainment event. And if you’ve looked at the disparity between the game’s TV ratings and live attendance of late, you realize how critical that change in thinking has been to the survival of the league.
So we say it’s time to put some poultry on the Hall of Fame ballot. Hell, the Chicken deserves his own wing ( … heh).
Besides, he’d likely be the only one on the ballot whose name has never come up in the steroids scandal. Although to be fair, every time he squatted to take the test he just laid an egg.
As for Giannoulas, we’re not sure if anyone has asked him about Cooperstown, but if they did we’re guessing we know what his answer would be. Absolutely, positively, yes. As it turns out, it appears the man may have a bit of a Chicken God Complex. Get a load of Giannoulas’ response when Sam Mellinger of The Kansas City Star asked him a few years ago whether he planned to train Chicken 2.0:
“Can’t train anybody,” he began. “Can’t train anybody, the same way Michael Jordan couldn’t coach anybody to play like him. Is he down on the floor trying to coach those guys to be the next Michael Jordan?
“If I could train people, I’d train 50 of them and send one to every state and collect royalty checks. But it’s not a trainable thing. How many guys like Roger Clemens come along? Guys like that? Maybe one in a generation.
Separated at birth?
“I look at the Rolling Stones, for example. They’re playing into their 60s. There’ll be another million bands that pass through the music industry. There will never be another Rolling Stones. Those guys are amazing. Who could play like that?”
Beautiful.
You can read Mellinger’s teary-eyed remembrance here. And stay tuned at the bottom of the roundup for a video tribute to our hero.
- We still don’t know the answer to the age-old question “Who let the dogs out?”. But at least we know who they’re biting … Kyle Farnsworth. (Yahoo)
- Fake grunting in women’s tennis? Sheesh, as if we don’t have to deal with this enough in our personal lives already. (Jezebel)
- Please don’t try to explain to Iowans what “satire” is. (Sports by Brooks)
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One Response to “Morning wood: Stay classy, San Diego Chicken”
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Pooping all over the web …
Communication is the key to any relationship …
Thanks for the post, I stumbled upon