![]() ![]() ![]() There is an exhibit that asks you to strap on 40-pound sandbags (to approximate the weight of a costume), then dance and monitor your heart rate. You do learn things: Such as how it feels like to sweat inside a mascot costume while being poked for autographs, and that mascots (“by tradition”) have four fingers, and that White Sox mascots Ribbie and Roobarb only lasted seven years “due to verbal abuse.” (The snot, which looks more like the world’s largest tangle of rubber bands, is the museum’s intentional way of telegraphing that playfulness.) Think a somewhat modest shrine to the playfulness of sports marketing mashed against a more expansive, education-minded children’s museum. ![]() “We’re not going to become some repository for old, dusty sports objects.” “I call this our take on bronze busts,” Hernandez said, staring up at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade-size balloon heads of mascots suspended in the main foyer, greeting you as you enter. Sure, it sits against rusted brown railroad tracks, an arm’s reach from slow-moving freight, and yeah, it shares a parking lot with the public works department and animal shelter, and yes, it is a sports hall of fame that celebrates the furry, goofy and noncompetitive.īut it’s also colorful and charming, and with 25,000 square feet and three floors, surprisingly sleek, as unexpected as a bucket of popcorn dropped on your head by Benny the Bull. ![]()
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