WILMINGTON NEWS JOURNAL
'Naked, I feel naked'By Valerie Helmbreck
Photo by Jim Graham
For 16 years, Dave Raymond kept quiet.
In public, that is.
As the Phillie Phanatic, Raymond harassed, encouraged, lamented, cheered and cried for baseball fans. He rolled over things with his four-wheeler, rubbed the heads of bewildered onlookers and made merciless fun of the Phils and their opponents.
But he never uttered a word.
Now, as he heads into retirement, his alter ego's alter ego is emerging.
And it never shuts up.
It's not much of a shock to find that the man inside the furry green suit-a 5 foot 9 inch bundle of nervous energy-is as exuberant and restless as the character he created.
What's odd is his obsessive neatness.
Dave never sits still. Pausing only for a breath and a sip of iced tea every now and again-a hint at the chronic thirst that comes from 16 years inside the oven of a suit-he talks and fidgets. His eyes dart across the room, his hands sweep the tiniest crumbs off the table, he compulsively rearranges the leftover salad and tortellini on his plate into neat little piles.
He moves the glassware a dozen times; lining up the bases and then positioning flatware at right angles.
His chatter is upbeat. He talks about everything but the one thing he's at a loss to explain: his long run of luck as "a professional idiot."
But there are times when the electricity shuts down for a few seconds. Asked about how he feels about leaving behind Phanatic fame for a new, albeit spinoff career, Raymond confesses: "Naked, I feel naked."
Instinct and agility
Raymond isn't keen on analyzing his success because most of what he does is instinctive.
He thinks working with kids as a student teacher helped him understand how to play off and with kids in the stands. His energy and agility helped, too.
He'll also admit that his mother's hearing loss-she became mostly deaf when Raymond was 3-naturally made him more physically expressive. "I didn't learn to American Sign Language until she was really sick with cancer and had lost all her hearing. But as a child, I'm sure I used body language and facial expressions to make sure she understood me."
When Raymond began as the Phanatic, Raymond didn't think about any of these things. He says he acted like himself-despite some grave reservations about the job.
When Phillies management first bought the Phanatic suit and asked Dave to wear it (he was working in the Vet mailroom at the time), the 21-year-old went to his father for advice.
"He was just an intern at the time and he was really upset," says Tubby Raymond. "He said, 'Is that all they think of me? That I'm a clown?'
"As it turns out, it was a great opportunity for him, but at the time he was kind of hurt. I told him not to worry, as long as Ruly (Carpenter, former Phillies owner and president) was there, he didn't have anything to worry about. Of course, Ruly's gone now, but I think Bill Giles became kind of a mentor, a father figure for him."
Phillies owner Giles doesn't remember Dave being reluctant. "He seemed at the time to relish the idea," he says.
Giles does remember, however, not liking the idea of a mascot.
"I thought it was a dumb idea," says Giles, who was the club's business manager back then.
The dumb idea came from Denny Lehman, then assistant public relations director, who traveled with the club and had seen the antics of San Diego's Chicken.
Ted Giannoulas-who plays the Chicken-says the Phillies called him for advice in 1978. "We had three very long conversations. They wanted to know everything. How fans react. How umpires react. How other managers react. If kids were scared of the Chicken, that kind of thing," says Giannoulas. "I have to hand it to them. They were the only team who went about it the right way. They put the weight of their whole organization behind the effort."
Although Giles finally agreed to Lehman's idea, he thought the Phanatic would be short-lived. "I didn't think mascots had any place in professional sports," Giles says. "I thought that would lay an egg in Philadelphia. The fans here are too hard-core, too serious."
Lehman persisted. Giles relented. "I told them to get the people who made Big Bird and tell them I wanted something green, fat cuddly and cute."
Giles bought the Phanatic suit from Wayde Harrison and Bonnie Erickson for $3,900 in what he calls the worst business deal he's ever made. (Erickson, who worked for Jim Henson before striking out on her own, created Miss Piggy, too.) "They told me I could have the suit and the copyright for $5,000. Since I didn't think the thing was going to work out anyway, I'd thought I'd just save the $1,100. Two years later, I had to pay $200,000 for the copyright."
Nobody was more surprised at the Phanatic's acceptance in Philadelphia than Giles. Still, he says he's had to rein in Raymond many times in 16 years. "We've asked him not to be so destructive, not to run over dummies and tear up things. We thought a lot of that was unnecessary."
He also put the kibosh on Raymond's imitation of Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox's strange gait. "Cox was about to have surgery on both legs. We told Dave not to make fun of him anymore."
Giles also told Raymond if he wanted to keep on being the Phanatic, he'd have to stop messing up the boss' hair at public events. "I don't carry a comb," says Giles.
Nowadays, when Raymond sees his boss, he kneels and kisses Giles' feet.
If Raymond's irreverence has gotten him into trouble over the years, it's also what got him the Phanatic gig in the first place.
Giles admits he tapped Raymond for the job because he was a wisecracking, animated athletic smart aleck. A big kid.
A grown-up at 37
People have always asked Dave Raymond what he's going to do when he grows up.
He once told the News Journal that his college diploma-he has a degree in physical education from the University of Delaware-is in the same cardboard tube it came in.
He said he planned to hang it up when he got a real job.
Although he's on the Phillies payroll as a consultant for the next six months, the big test of the 37-year-old's creativity comes with the start-up of Acme Mascots, a sports entertainment company.
He has to buy a beeper and a cellular phone.
Raymond says he hates these high-tech affectations, but as he rearranges and precisely aligns the cutlery on the table, a hint of a grin flits across his boyish face.
Being a grown-up is looking better all the time. "At first, I was really scared (Acme Mascots) wouldn't work out. Now, 'm getting scared that it will. I used to travel 40 to 50,000 miles a year. For the next year, year and a half, I'll probably have to double that."
Like father, like son
Dave Raymond likes the travel, but he doesn't like the idea of being away from his 4-year-old son, Kyle.
Kyle is with Raymond part of each week, the rest he is with Raymond's soon-to-be ex-wife Christine in West Chester, Pa.
"It's really tough and I can see it getting tougher with the business. But being a father is the most important thing I do," Raymond says.
In fact, in the flurry of phone calls to set up this lunch, times, dates and arrangements were altered mostly to accommodate Kyle's schedule.
"He's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. No, wait, kicking that field goal at Delaware was right up there. I'm just kidding. Having Kyle is the most phenomenal experience of my life. Everything else is way down the list."
Moving in the rich and famous circles of professional sports, Raymond saw lots of players' kids not getting much consideration. One baseball ex-wife recently told Raymond she thought her son and his absentee father would become best friends late in life.
"I wanted to tell her, no, that won't happen. He may be in awe of him, but they won't be friends then unless they're close now."
His best friend
Raymond is something of an expert on being the son of a famous dad. No local story ever written about him fails to mention his own father, longtime University of Delaware football coach, Tubby Raymond.
Sharing a father with a sometimes adoring, sometimes hostile public left Dave with few delusions about fame. "I never, never wanted to be famous. I wanted to be a great athlete, but the fame thing isn't very good for you. As it turned out, I was small and slow, an average athlete, but I could do this. Be a professional idiot. The way I look at it, there are a lot of people out there making idiots of themselves for free. I'm getting paid for it."
Well paid. About $170,000 a year according to published reports.
Asked how it feels to be more famous than his father, the younger Raymond deflects the question as easily as Lenny Dykstra fouls off pitches. "You have to understand, as a kid my dad was one of my idols. I was in awe of him. I still feel that way to a certain extent. He's still my best friend and the person I go to for advice on everything."
Tubby Raymond now gets calls from people who want Dave. He recently got an invitation for a Midwestern golf outing that was contingent on his youngest son coming along.
In college though, when Dave was a kicker for the Blue Hens, the elder Raymond kept his distance.
"I turned him over to somebody else," says Tubby. "I didn't even speak to him."
The elder Raymond has made plenty of jokes about his son's career-he's called the Phanatic a "green transvestite" and has referred to the job as "a wart on the side of a career goal."
But he's proud of Dave's accomplishments. "I've never, ever worried about him professionally. He's smart and talented. The only thing I've ever really worried about is safety."
Tubby says Dave is a lot like him: intense, detail-conscious and overly concerned about winning.
In other ways he's like his mother. "He's smart and analytical like she was," he says.
Dave says it was his mother's death three years ago that brought father and son close. When she died of cancer, it was the beginning of what Dave describes as the toughest time of his life. Only a month later, Dave and his wife separated. Then the Newark coin-operated laundry he began in 1988 with college friend Jaime Young failed.
Stopping the skid hasn't been easy. Dave says he and Christine are friendly, but he misses being married and having his family together. He'd also like more kids.
These days he shares the small starter house in Greenmeadow off Wilson Road-a place he bought right out of college-with live-in girlfriend Sandy Ingram. The two met when Raymond was making a personal appearance at Wannamaker's in Philadelphia, where Ingram works. They've been together two years.
Raymond says regretfully that being a single parent my have actually made him a better father.
"I think if I had stayed married, I may have been more of the traditional kind of dad who came home at the end of the day and patted the kids on the head and then went off to do whatever he wanted to do. I can't be that kind of dad now, in my situation. I have to really take care of my son."
Although he now has family commitments and is still reeling from the events of the past several years, Raymond says he's confident the time is right to change direction. Whether it's a calculated move toward independence or a dramatic attempt to reverse fortune, the move is a gamble that Raymond says both excites and scares him.
More than the costume
Acme Mascots, based in Philadelphia, is a three-way split between Raymond and partners Erickson and Harrison, who created the Phanatic costume. At least for the next year and a half, Raymond will don Harrison-Erickson created costumes and perform as a mascot for events.
Now, instead of wearing the fuzzy Phanatic costume, he'll be creating other characters. As an actor and a performer, he'll have to "stretch."
"I could become the Sport Barney...No, that would be awful. I hate Barney. He's a big purple turd. He's just stupid. Characters don't have to be stupid just because they're for kids."
Much of what Raymond did as the Phanatic he'll adapt to new venues. He's booking his new act into minor league parks-where he's performed for years as the Phanatic. Raymond plans to do most of the Acme performances for at least the next year and a half before hiring other to be the professional idiot.
How good is Raymond at what he does? Many believe he took the art of pantomime and slapstick at sporting events to a higher standard.
San Diego Chicken Giannoulas says that although a good costume and club backing is essential to a mascot's success, a character can't succeed without a great performer.
Raymond, says Giannoulas, is one. "There's nothing worse than trying to be funny and not being funny. A lot of other characters think its Halloween. They just put on the suit and people will love them. It doesn't work that way. I know that and Dave knows that...San Francisco had a crab that scared people. Cleveland had a creature that made babies cry. Most of these other mascot wound up on waivers."
Phanatic understudy Tom Burgoyne-who takes over for Raymond this spring-says the Phanatic's personality is Dave's. "Dave's always on, always wired...The Phanatic is likable, naughty and a little bit ornery. He's kind of like a 10 year-old kid, very engaging and really pretty sweet."
"That's pretty much Dave."
Giannoulas says he thinks fans see right through a costume. In the final analysis, they see the soul inside."
Which doesn't mean everybody likes the Phanatic or the human inside the suit.
Some folks hate him. Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda for one. It didn't help that the Phanatic sprinkled a trail of Slim Fast in front of Lasorda, who's been pitching the diet power for years.
Former Phillies great Mike Schmidt is also said to dislike the Phanatic.
Most purists in the game do, says Burgoyne. "Some of the players are pretty serious and don't like to be screwed around with. When guys are in a slump or a bad mood for some reason, it's usually better to just leave them alone. Dave's always been pretty good about that."
That goes for umpires, too, says Burgoyne. "Some like him, some don't. Dave knows who's who."
As part of the transition, Raymond is giving Burgoyne the low-down on individual players and umpires.
Although Dave and his Phanatic gave cranky players a wide berth, managers like Lasorda and serious fans don't get the same treatment. Both Burgoyne and Raymond agree: They're a magnet.
"Especially little old bald guys with no sense of humor," says Raymond. "I just can't resist yanking their chain."
The future
Both Giles and Raymond think Burgoyne will fare well with the Phillies' fans, but their confidence isn't based on much experience.
The backup hasn't worked as the Phanatic at the Vet, where the testy, contentious and often rude Philadelphia baseball fans rule the stands. (Remember, this is the gang that booed Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.)
That's because in 16 years as the Phanatic, Raymond only missed seven home games-a week when he was hospitalized with pneumonia and then again when his mom died. Burgoyne has gotten most of his exposure at promotional appearances.
Raymond says it will be a while before his successor can start playing around with the Phanatic's personality.
Burgoyne, a former computer supplies salesman who got the backup job five years ago after answering a newspaper advertisement, doesn't think he'll do more than add different acts.
The Phanatic's personality, as created by Dave Raymond, is unchangeable.
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