He walked in with Pez in his pockets and a smile on his face. "I can't go anywhere without my Pez." He was Payton Foutz, a 20-year-old from Tacoma's South Hill. The smile was because he was about to do something he always wanted to do - tryout to be a mascot, and not just any mascot, Rhubarb, the mascot for the AAA Tacoma Rainiers baseball team. He sat in front of a gauntlet of Tacoma Rainiers employees. "I'm really nervous," he said, baseball hat sitting askew atop his head.
"There's nothing to be nervous about," said Rebecca King, Executive Vice President.
Of course there was plenty to be nervous about if you were Foutz. First off, he was about to embark on an adventure, an adventure replete with oodles of baseball games, oodles of ogling fans young and old and oodles of public appearances. If he was chosen, he'd have to attend 70-plus baseball games and 100-plus public appearances, from senior centers to day camps, charity events to local parades. Second off, he was sitting in front of some big names within the Rainiers organization, people like Team President Aaron Artman and Josie Wilkes, Director of Marketing and Community Development, who would be, for no better term, Rhubarb's handler.
Also there - Tony Canepa - who demands much from a mascot. Why? Because he's been a mascot, twice in fact. All the way from Dallas, Texas (he is a creative director with Shlegel Sports, owners of the Rainiers), he was there to put the candidates, more than a half dozen, through the paces of being a real honest-to-goodness baseball-loving mascot. He had been the UNLV Runnin' Rebel during his college days. Then, for the Las Vegas 51s, a minor league team for the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was Cosmo, a survivor of a spaceship crash who spent time at Area 51 and was a baseball phenom on his home planet of Koufaxia, or so says his biographical sketch on the team website.
After Foutz donned the outfit - fuzzy arms, a giant nose, mesmerizing blue eyes, a big rack of reindeer antlers, a jersey with the word Rhubarb emblazoned on the back - Canepa shouts out commands and Foutz has to do what Canepa says, in costume, without the ability to speak. "You're happy!" Foutz hops up and down in fits of joy. "You're embarrassed!" He furtively kicks the ground with his sneakers. "You're hassled by a drunk guy." He raises his big furry arms saying, without talking, "Hey, bud. Be cool." He wags his head seductively with a come hither look (difficult to do when the reindeer head's only emotion is euphoria) when he's asked to woo the ladies. "You're ecstatic," Canepa yells. "They just hit a home run!" Foutz jumps up and down like mad, the antlers scraping the ceiling of the small conference room where the auditions were held.
The mascot job is not a walk in the ballpark. Far from it. Getting paid $50 to $75 per appearance, Rhubarb has to be "on" all the time come that first pitch. There is dancing on dugouts to be done. There are inebriated baseball fans in the bleachers to contend with. There are preschools girls to hug. There are the middle school boys with baseballs they want autographed, all the more difficult when one is wearing reindeer "hooves."
"Man, I'm sweating," Foutz says, removing the reindeer head, breathing heavily before he has to do a dance routine in front of everyone. "You might need some Frebreze in here," he says, pointing to the inside of the head. "It's HOT in there."
Hot, Rhubarb is. He's down right popular. "He is a busy, busy reindeer," says Wilkes. "We get asked all sorts of questions," she says as Foutz grabs a water and guzzles it. "We get asked if he's a moose. He's NOT a moose. Rhubarb gets his feelings hurt when he's asked if he's a moose. And, no, he's not an elk!" Wilkes gets visibly upset when folks ask her if he's an elk. "We also get asked if he know Rudolph. We say they're cousins."
"They need to be able to shake it," Rebecca King says before turning on a CD of disco funk. "We had a Power Ranger who was going to audition for us. He was in a Michael Jackson video!...He got in a car accident though." And so it's Foutz, in costume again, with music blaring, that he begins to shake it.
How does one define good dancing when one is watching someone dance in an enormous reindeer outfit? Is it the "Saturday Night Fever" impersonations that herald a good dance sequence? Perhaps it's the moves taken from a scene in "Pulp Fiction" that says, yes, he's got what it takes. Maybe it's when a reindeer tries breakdancing. Whatever the case may be, the small audience howls with laughter and, hearing that laughter, Foutz dances even more feverishly. He's a certifiable hit.
"It is HOT in there," he repeats, beat tired but smiling. Foutz is a Clover Park Technical College graduate and an Eagle Scout who knows sign language. He plays a mean saxophone, is into skateboarding and has a tattoo of a blue ribbon in support of his mother who is battling rectal cancer. Soon after he strutted his stuff, and performed an inspired high jump, he was offered the job for the season. Geoff Corkum, the Rainiers' Director of Media Development said, "After a few more participants in the afternoon, it was evident that Payton was the man."
"This is my dream job," he said, chewing on those Pez candies, hair matted with reindeer sweat. The dream is now realized. After some work on technique and skills needed to be a great mascot, he'll be out on that field, night after night, delighting in being Rhubarb, dancing a jig, putting voodoo hexes on opposing pitchers, giving high fives to kids who some day might not want to be a centerfielder or a star catcher. No, they just might want to be Payton Foutz.
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