Ballpark characters
The evolution of baseball mascots
Have you heard the one about…
…the moment Major League Baseball decided what it really needed was a giant baseball-headed man wandering around the field?
For much of baseball’s early history, mascots weren’t fuzzy, and they weren’t funny.
They were real live people.
In the early 1900s, teams believed mascots were good luck charms. So they brought in young boys, often societal outcasts, who they thought might somehow bring fortune to the club.
Most were young. Some were orphaned or homeless. Some had disabilities. At times, it could be strange. Even uncomfortable.
Needless to say, it was very different from what comes to mind when we think of mascots today.
One of the most famous early mascots was Eddie Bennett—a Yankees batboy and mascot during the “Murderers’ Row” era.
Born in Brooklyn in 1903, Eddie’s childhood wasn’t easy. A serious spinal injury in infancy left him physically disabled, and as a teenager, he lost both of his parents in the 1918 influenza epidemic. Baseball wasn’t just something he enjoyed—it became a lifeline, something he could hold onto.
