Crab Week: Crazy Crab

I never knew that the San Francisco Giants had a crab mascot named Crazy Crab way back in the day. It was in my research that I came across this gem of a site that details the whole story behind the mascot:

"The '70's may have brought us bell bottoms and disco, but they also saw the beginning of the mascot craze in professional baseball. In 1984, the Giants decided to try their hand at the mascot game, but with their own special twist: They created the 'anti-mascot.' The creature they unleashed was the now-legendary (and infamous) Crazy Crab. The idea was to poke fun at traditional mascots, and television commercials depicted manager Frank Robinson having to be restrained from attacking the crustacean. Fans were encouraged to boo and hiss the phony mascot, who was portrayed by actor Wayne Doba. The prodding worked all too well. With a 96-loss season soothing no souls, Crazy Crab became the object of hatred and abuse. The crowd would hurl all sorts of things at the beast, both verbally and literally, and even players got into the act, dumping drinks and other things into the suit."

I think I would go to baseball games just to throw things at a mascot called Crazy Crab.. What a great idea! There are several fan accounts on the website and I have taken the liberty of posting one of my favorites here:

The Crab would enter the field to the theme music: "All those fans in Giants Land love that Crazy Crab -Down by the Bay, folks all say - Love that Crazy Crab." And then he would be pelted viciously by the fans with golf balls, carrots, peanuts, beer bottles, even urine-filled balloons.

In the clubhouse, players used to spit tobacco juice through his eyeholes and drop lighted firecrackers in his path. Goba, the man who portrayed the Crab, had plans to drop a Crazy Crab costume onto the field from a helicopter in a final, suicidal send-off, but thought better of it, worrying that kids in the stands might freak out.