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The 1970s marked the beginnings of the mascot craze in professional sports, which all began with baseball's famous San Diego Chicken. In 1984, the San Francisco Giants finally decided to try their hand at the mascot game, but with their own special twist: They created an "anti-mascot." The San Diego Chicken, an advertising mascot played by Ted Giannoulas, was hatched in 1974 when employees of KGB Radio hired Giannoulas from off-the-street to wear the chicken outfit for a promotion to distribute easter eggs to children at the San Diego Zoo. ...
Major league affiliations National League (1883-present) West Division (1969-present) Major league titles World Series titles (5) 1954 • 1933 • 1922 • 1921 1905 NL Pennants (20) 2002 • 1989 • 1962 • 1954 1951 • 1937 • 1936 • 1933 1924 • 1923 • 1922 • 1921 1917 • 1913 • 1912 • 1911 1905 • 1904 • 1889 • 1888 West Division titles (6...
The horrific creature they unleashed was the now legendary and infamous Crazy Crab. The idea was to mock the concept of traditional sports mascots. Giants’ television commercials depicted then manager Frank Robinson having to be restrained from attacking the ridiculous crustacean. Fans were encouraged to boo and hiss the phony mascot, who was portrayed by actor Wayne Doba. Frank Robinson (born August 31, 1935 in Beaumont, Texas), was a Major League Baseball player and is currently the manager of the Washington Nationals. ...
The prodding worked all too well. With a 96-loss season that year soothing no souls, Crazy Crab became the object of radical 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, firecrackers, chewing tobacco spit and other things into the suit. Giants’ broadcasters Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper, both players during the year of Crazy Crab, were asked in an online chat if they ever had trouble with him. Their response: "No, we used to drill him with the resin bag daily, so he was scared of us." Michael Edward (Mike) Krukow (born January 21, 1952 in Long Beach, California) is a former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. ...
Duane Kuiper was a second baseman for the Cleveland Indians and San Francisco Giants during the 1970s. ...
Crazy Crab stories have become something of legend. Giants' catcher Steve Nicosia once donned the suit while he trashed the volatile Jeffrey Leonard's locker. While playing the Crab, Doba was even hard tackled by a San Diego Padres player and ended up filing a lawsuit against the Padres for back injuries. On the final day of the 1984 season, as he stood on the field in the suit before the game, Doba reportedly told a Giants executive, "I hope there's nobody up there with a gun."
The nightmare for the bug-eyed object of foam derision ended after just one season. The Giants would not attempt another mascot, "anti" or real, until 1997, when Lou Seal made his cautious debut. But no mascot will ever again as sharply define the term "love-hate" as the vaunted Crazy Crab.
Early in the Giants’ 2005 season, a populist movement took root among hardcore Giants’ fans to bring back the long-gone, but not forgotten, Crazy Crab. The grassroots movement was spurned largely by a website, titled "Rehab the Crab". The humorous movement garnered much attention from local media, culminating in a Rehab the Crab protest march in front of the Giants’ AT&T Park before a game. The Rehab the Crab movement continues to draw a following from many Giants fans, and the Crazy Crab promises to continue to be a unique part of what it means to be a Giants’ fan.
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