The Phillie Phanatic opens up about getting ignored by cardboard cutouts and his excitement for fans returning to games
The return of baseball means the return of fans to stadiums that have now sat empty for a year and a half. There was just one group of people with whom I wanted to discuss this—MLB’s mascots.
The images of forlorn mascots trying to entertain rows of empty seats last season haunted me; the idea of them trying to adjust to a scenario with some fans, but still with restrictions, was oddly compelling. But most teams keep their mascots from media exposure to preserve a certain air of mystery, and with request after request, I was turned down. “Unfortunately, Mr. Met doesn’t speak,” wrote the Mets’ director of communications, which, fair, who could argue with that? There was one mascot, however, who did agree to an interview—the Phillie Phanatic.
Tom Burgoyne started as a back-up Phanatic in 1989 and has had the job full-time since 1993. His official title is “best friend of the Phanatic,” to keep a bit of that aforementioned mystery, and as such, he tends to talk about his “friend” in the third person. For the start of the 2021 season, he talks about doing his job with—and without—fans.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Sports Illustrated: So much of the job seems like it's about the fans and how you interact with them. How did you go about trying to do that when the fans weren't there?
Tom Burgoyne: Well, first of all, we had our cutouts, as a lot of ballparks did. So for the Phanatic, he's always looking to entertain and have some fun and make people laugh, and he thought maybe he could have a little fun, you know, playing around with those cutouts. So we had some cutouts of opposing fans planted out there so the Phanatic could still shoot silly string or have some fun or just sit in front of one of those fans. Of course, he tried to get everybody to do the wave, that didn't work. He went out selling programs, he was a vendor at one of the games and nobody wanted to buy programs from him—he didn't understand that. He had pizzas delivered, and he wound up with about 15 pizzas all himself—he was offering slices to all the cutouts, but nobody wanted a slice. And thankfully, you know, the cameras would pick it up every once in a while, so at least the people who were at home could see that the Phanatic was still out there having fun.
SI: Obviously tough circumstances for it, but I imagine that's the most creative you've ever had to get in your job, right?
TB: Yeah. I've been doing it for a long time—30 years, this is my 33rd season. And so it really was one of those things where I think you have to think outside the box a little bit and go, oh, this is something different. Usually, we have a pretty set schedule on where the Phanatic goes. He's in the crowd, of course, but you know, the timings are set between innings—and last year we kind of threw that out the window. It was kind of, in a weird way, a fun year in that it made us get a little bit more creative. But certainly it's much better with the fans, that's for sure.
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SI: Did anything surprise you about that experience?
TB: Just the loneliness. And the Phanatic kinda was looking around—when you were listening on TV, the music and the crowd noise sounded kind of real, but at the ballpark, it sounded kind of hollow and empty. So just that emptiness, you know, was very strange. It just surprised me how that made me feel.
SI: And after all of that, how did it feel to be back for your first spring training game, you know, to finally be at a ballpark with people and do the job differently?
TB: Yeah, down at spring training, it was so great to have people—when the gate opened, I was there with my cell phone camera, and I took pictures of people coming into the ballpark, and everybody was so happy that first game. I can't wait to have people in the park, but it's also going to be a different year. Yeah, the crowds won't be as big, but also, we have to be careful. We have a lot of social-distance restrictions in place, obviously, here at the ballpark—we've zip-tied seats so we'll have pod seating. And usually the Phanatic, when he's down there, he's a rock star. You know, he gets mobbed, I tell people it's like A Hard Day's Night, one of those Beatles movies where the Fab Four are running from their fans. The Phanatic just gets mobbed that way. And it's great, it's posing for pictures, it's high fives and hugs and smooches. It's spilling popcorn on people. But he attracts a crowd, and so we do have to be careful where the Phanatic goes this year when he's in the crowd. It's going to be a lot of quick-hitters, and then, you know, kind of disappear and then another quick-hitter, just kind of being careful. Of course, we'll have somebody who's always around the Phanatic—we always have somebody who's helping him out in the crowd, and she'll have to be a little bit more vocal this year. Just, Hey, make sure you're keeping your space, in a nice, calm way, you know, and I think people understand. They see the Phanatic wearing his mask. I hear parents all the time saying, Oh, kids you know, the Phanatic has his mask on, we can't get too close, but we can still get a picture. There's just a little bit of that going on. But it's still good.
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SI: Yeah, I imagine that kind of involves a different type of creativity—last year was figuring out how you do this with no fans at all, and this is how you do it with fans that you can't interact with in the same way.
TB: Absolutely. It's a different year than last year, and it's certainly different than having no restrictions at all, so it'll be a little different. The Phanatic's featured once a game live on the field and then once live on the dugout, so there are kind of two times during the game where you never know what's gonna happen when the Phanatic comes out. He could shoot hot dogs; he might have a dance team lined up, or some kids; he may have his inflatable characters, called the Galapagos Gang, on the field with him; he may have an umpire planted down there or an usher. So there's a lot of things that we normally would do. But this year, they're not allowing anybody on the field other than Tier 2 or Tier 1 one employees, people with those kind of credentials. The Phanatic is a Tier 2 employee—basically, he'll be able to be on the field, but he's not going to be able to do all the things he'd like to do. So instead of always going on the field and doing just the same thing, we actually have a dance floor that's being constructed right on Ashburn Alley, behind section 148. It's viewable from the whole seating bowl, so the Phanatic's going to be using that. We'll use that stage a bit for some different things, and he'll be on the field pregame, and maybe a little bit during. But a lot of times, we've got this dance floor, and we thought that might be a nice way to get around some of the restrictions on the field.
SI: What was the brainstorming like to figure that out?
TB: Yeah, I came up with that idea—knowing the NBA, watching what they had to do because they were under the same restrictions, I noticed some of them had stages where they'd have national anthem singers and anything that they're doing pre-game. So I got together with our entertainment group, and I think we were all on the same page that we were going to have to have some type of area, because we can't use the field. That area will also be used pregame, for any on-field recognition that we would have done on the field, or maybe a national anthem. And then I said, Well, we can convert that stage into a dance floor. I have a disco ball—I'm trying to rig something up so we can have some kind of arm that reaches out over the dance floor, and we can hang that up when it's time for the Phanatic to do his disco dancing.
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SI: And looking back on all of this, from what you did last year to how you're thinking about this year, does it make you think differently at all about your job?
TB: I think of just the run that I've had with the Phillies, and also the run the Phanatic has had, and what the Phanatic represents to the fans. It's such a loving thing. I've written a book about it—it's all about that love that the Phanatic inspires. I mean, he's out there hugging, high-fiving, people just go crazy for the Phanatic. They wear his stuff. They want pictures. He's a rock star, and he keeps people up in down times. Yeah, I think last year, when the Phanatic was out there doing his thing, people were laughing and seeing it on TV, or online—it was great. In tough times, it's nice to have the Phanatic out there making people laugh. So I just feel blessed.
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