- [Will] Here's what I know about Tommy Lasorda.
He managed the Dodgers for a very long time.
He kind of looks like Rodney Dangerfield,
and he once got a mascot ejected from a baseball game.
- Which mascot?
- Yeah which mascot?
- Youppi!
- No!
- Who the hell is Youppi?
- Youppi!
(logo scratching)
(slow upbeat music)
- [Will] Youppi! is great.
He's essentially a Quebecois Phillie Phanatic.
- [Seth] Feels like a dangerous thing to say.
- [Will] Not too edgy (laughs)
He pulls stunts.
He replaced a very creepy mascot
that was there for like a season, named Souki,
who was like if Mr. Met went to space.
- [Joe] And his name was Souki?
- [Will] Yeah I think I'm getting that right.
He also, the other-- - Okay.
- The other really good thing is,
for whatever reason,
the minor league teams affiliated with the Expos
couldn't also have a Youppi!, so they had a Yuppi.
Which really looks like
if Youppi! stayed in his creation vat a little too long.
It's just overcooked.
- Melted Youppi!.
(all laughing)
- What does Youppi! mean?
- Oh, it's just French for "yippee".
Yippee!
Youppi!
- Youppi!
- He's basically a walking celebration.
- Gotcha, gotcha.
- Which, complete opposite from Tommy Lasorda.
The Dodgers were in Montreal in August of 1989.
There also was just like some bad calls.
Which is important,
because it allows the crotchety Lasorda
to become an even crotchety-er Lasorda.
A lot of people know this as the Eddie Murray game.
A player on the Dodgers
who just kept getting screwed over by the umps.
- So, just bad vibes all around.
- Bad vibes across the board.
- But Youppi!'s there.
And, Tommy Lasorda's there.
And Tommy Lasorda feeds off of bad vibes.
Each time Lasorda would go out to argue a call,
he would return to the dugout,
and be greeted by Youppi!.
- [Seth] Like, in the dugout?
- [Will] On top of the dugout.
- [Joe] The human exclamation point himself.
- The human exclamation point.
- He's not human.
- [Will] Let's not assume species.
- Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
You're right, you're right, you're right.
- He would stand on the opposing team's dugout
and stomp around,
and the roof just happened to made out of aluminum,
'cause why not.
- Why not make it out of the loudest material possible?
(all laugh)
- You basically have a team in a loud metal cage.
So, Youppi! is up on the dugout just stomping around.
Lasorda's inside the dugout.
He pops out to just glare at Youppi!.
Everyone loves it.
Youppi! recognizes that like,
"Oh cool, this is working.
"People are laughing.
"This guy's getting upset.
"So, I'll stomp exactly over where he is in the dugout".
- That's honestly such a asshole thing to do.
- It's kinda, yeah,
but like, that's the job of the mascot, right?
- I don't know a lot about Tommy Lasorda.
Like, I don't really remember him,
but I feel like it's not off base
to say he was like kind of an asshole.
Like, kind of a famously irascible person.
- Right, right.
He definitely was, towards mascots.
There are exactly three mascots
that have displays in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
It's Youppi!, the Phillie Phanatic,
and the Famous Chicken from San Diego.
- [Seth] Okay.
- [Will] Tommy Lasorda has gotten in fights
with all of them.
- And, not joking?
- Against the Phanatic, he like,
stole the ATV that the Phanatic was riding around.
It was really great, actually.
The Phanatic had a stuffed version of Tommy Lasorda,
making fun of Lasorda's gut.
A baseball comes flying out from off-screen
to hit the Phanatic as he's driving off on his ATV.
Which I assume, Lasorda, the former pitcher, had thrown.
(laughing)
He cornered the Famous Chicken--
- The San Diego Chicken?
- The San Diego Chicken.
And strangled him,
and told him if he stomped on any Dodgers hats that night,
he would put his hand around his throat
and squeeze until his eyes popped out.
- So I'm guessing he stepped on some hats that night.
(laughs)
- So, he was just really sensitive.
- Or confused by mascots and puppetry.
- It kind of feels like he was just like,
"That, the furry chicken alien hurt my feelings."
- Right, right.
And then so when Youppi! manages to get
20,000 fans to like laugh at you.
- Oh, he took that shit personal.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
The climactic point in their relationship
came in like the tenth inning.
Still scoreless.
After Lasorda had already gotten Youppi! to leave
the top of the dugout a couple times,
and he just like, plopped down in the front row.
Youppi! had a little wardrobe change.
And he put on an oversized night shirt,
and one of those, just like, droopy night caps.
- I love this dude.
- Brought a pillow out,
and went to sleep on top of the Dodgers dugout.
Tenth inning.
Scoreless.
Perfect goof.
Lasorda though, steps out,
asks the ump to throw him out of the game.
And the ump just like blows a bubble
and then tosses Youppi!.
- They threw Youppi! out of the game?
- They threw Youppi! out of the game.
And then get the saddest walk of a dejected--
- That, okay, so that's a gif I've seen,
of the ump, tosses him-- - [Will] Right.
- [Seth] and then he kind of like slides off of the dugout.
- How fed up do you have to be though,
to toss a freaking mascot?
- Well at that point the ump has to be
just fed up with Tommy Lasorda.
- And he's like, "I am so,
"I'm already dealing with the shit on the field,
"do not further provoke this person,
"who is making my night of work, way more difficult."
- So Youppi! left
and then they played another, like, 12 innings.
This game went 22 innings.
- [Seth] 22 innings?
- [Joe] It went 22 innings?
- [Will] Dodgers won 1-nothing.
- So Youppi! was absent for most of the game.
- [Will] Oh, yeah!
- Can you imagine Youppi! in like the 18th inning?
Just stomping on the dugout still?
- The funny thing about Lasorda getting mad
when he was sleeping on top of the dugout
is presumably Youppi! wasn't making any noise by doing that,
'cause he was just sort of static.
- [Joe] Right.
- And still.
And so based on my knowledge of the typography
of these things,
Lasorda would have to poke his head out and be like,
"Is he still, oh this dude’s still there!"
- "He's in a nightgown now!"
- It's not like he heard him stomping around.
It's like, "I just have a feeling."
- I forget that we actually work with someone
who used to be a mascot.
- [Will] Wait, actually?
- Yeah. - John?
- Not John Borris.
- I could see John being a mascot.
- I could actually see that too.
- I could not see that.
- Who was the mascot?
- Kofie.
- Kofie? - [Seth] For what?
- I don't know, he told me the story--
- Is Kofie here?
- Hang on, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Kofie!
- [Kofie] Hey. - There he goes!
- Come sit.
- Come get on the couch.
- [Joe And Seth] Come sit, man.
- We just learned something about you I think.
- Here, I'm just gonna hold this up for you right here.
- You used to be a mascot?
- It was one time.
Actually I've been a mascot twice.
- In college?
- No. - You said twice?
- [Will] Wait, I have so many questions
from those like five words you just said.
- So once, we stole a high school mascot.
We just like took it.
- [Will] Oh, so you're a thief?
- No.
- Yeah. (laughing)
- That's different from being a mascot.
- No, we were just like,
the mascot, current mascot,
was like, "I don't want to do this," and he put it down
and we picked it up and put the eagle head on, raven.
- [Will] Okay, and you performed as such--
- Man, that is multiple betrayals.
(all laugh)
- Second time, I was an intern for a sports club,
which I won't name.
(all laugh)
My boss was like,
"Okay, the mascot's not going to be here,
"I need you to be the mascot,"
And I was like, "Ah, ha ha."
She was serious.
- My time has come.
- So I showed up in jeans and a dress shirt,
and it's 90 degrees outside,
and I had to put the mascot costume on top of that
'cause I didn't know how hot mascots costumes get.
So I was out here sweating,
outside of the stadium,
wearing the backup mascot costume.
- [Will] Just crushing it.
- So there's a starter and a backup costume for mascots.
- And a couple things they don't tell you about
a mascot costumes is that
one, you can't really see.
And two, kids love to hit you.
Kids came up to me and one of my eagle hands falls off.
- Talon, please. - Oh, it's a talon?
- It's a talon.
- Talon, oh it's a talon.
One of my talons falls off in front of all these kids,
and everybody just stops.
And my handler,
the person following me around.
- Your talon.
- Okay so wait.
- My talon, my eagle handler at the time.
- So there's a starter costume,
a backup costume,
and you have a handler?
- Mm-hmm.
Someone was just following me around,
making sure I didn't do anything stupid.
Like, a talon falling off.
- Right.
- She looks at me and she's like,
"This was a mistake,"
and I was like, "Yes it was."
(all laugh)
But mascots aren't supposed to talk.
So now, they're like, "Oh, the mascot can talk"
- Were the kids weren't dumbfounded
that it was a black eagle?
- They were like, "Oh my god."
- I feel like that's why everybody stopped.
- Well no, if you look at a eagle,
the only part of it that's white is the head.
- [Kofie] Right. - That's true.
- And now 10 to 12 kids think like--
- Bi-racial eagle.
- Yeah, there you go!
- And now 10 to 12 kids think
that eagles have black hands under their talons.
Birds aren't real anyway.
(all laugh)