The most fun I ever had volunteering? My secret stint as Salinas Packers’ mascot “Leafy” | Opinion
“What was the most fun you ever had as a volunteer?”
The question was asked by a customer at Safeway while I was bagging his grocery order. He was one of our regulars. Yvonne and I worked together regularly — she as a checker, me bagging — and we challenged each other to learn the names of the people we saw often. Safeway is a busy place, and I must admit I did not know this man’s name.
But his question? I knew the answer immediately. Didn’t have to think about it. And remembering the fun I had? Well, that brought a smile and a chuckle.
Leafy!
Opinion
The spring I was 65 years old, there was a story in the Salinas Californian about the upcoming season for the city’s semi-pro baseball team, The Salinas Packers. The team owner was quoted in the story as saying, “I’ve got every position on the team filled, I’ve got a play-by-play announcer, I’ve got an equipment manager and lots of batboys and girls. But I don’t have a Leafy. So far, nobody wants to put on the lettuce costume and be our mascot.”
I clipped that article, made an appointment to see the owner, and made up my mind: No matter what it took, I was going to get that job! Throughout my high school and college career, I fantasized about wearing the mascot costume and creating excitement at sporting events, bonfires and pep rallies. Strangely, cheerleading did not appeal to me at all. I wanted the outrageous costume, the anonymity and the license for craziness.
I wanted to be the Salinas High School Cowboy. I wanted to be the Hartnell College Panther.
Alas, it didn’t happen. So now I was determined to be Leafy!
When I met the team owner, Dave Holt, he stood wordlessly trying to take in this obviously beyond 60-year-old woman who said to him, “I want to be Leafy, and I’ll do whatever it takes to win the position.”
Leafy had typically been a teenage boy, not a septuagenarian woman! In my favor, I was very fit, ran miles every day and was a petite 115 pounds of barely contained energy. One of the first things Dave asked me was, “Have you ever filed a Worker’s Comp claim?” I imagine he could see me falling off the roof of the dugout or tumbling down the stairs in the bleachers.
Dave went on to say, “You would only need to attend maybe one game each home stand, and you could leave after the first couple of innings.”
That was not going to happen!
Everything I’ve ever done has been done to the ultimate degree. There is nothing halfway about me. Absolutely nothing. All or nothing at all? Every time.
I convinced Dave to give me a tryout. Isn’t that the way they choose players? So why not the mascot? He looked a little scared and apprehensive, but since I wasn’t leaving, he finally said, “Okay, Let’s give it a try.”
You know how this goes, don’t you?
I attended every single home game in costume — I didn’t want anyone to know who Leafy was.
Leafy roamed the parking lot before games, handing out lollipops. He tooted an oogah horn as he ran up and down the stands; rang a cowbell when the Packers scored or made an important play; and raced a child around the bases during the seventh-inning stretch. He led the fans in the Village People’s “Y-M-C-A.” And he stayed in the stands until every last fan had departed.
The fans loved Leafy. Even one of the opposing teams sent a message to Leafy: “Please come and be our mascot. We need you!”
The most touching tribute I ever received was from a child who saw me in the parking lot before one of the last games of the year. I saw her out of the corner of my eye and recognized her as a six-year-old member of one of the programs I directed as part of my real job at Northminster Presbyterian Church. As she was walking past me in my full Leafy getup, she nonchalantly said, “Hi, Bunny.”
What? How did she know?
I bent over and whispered, “How did you know it was me, Amanda? Nobody knows who Leafy is. It’s a secret.”
Very casually she said, “Oh, I know you, Bunny.”
This is what I think: Children see more than our exterior physical makeup. They don’t necessarily notice our age, the color of our skin, our height or our weight. In their ability to see our hearts — what we are deep at the center of our being — they see the intangible. They see spirit.
Amanda saw someone who exuded happiness, vitality, delight and joy. And she, without hesitation, knew who that was.
It was the greatest compliment I’ve ever received: “Oh, I know you, Bunny.”
