A Little Bit Like Home

A Few Days with a Pink Rabbit

Opening Day has always felt like a second New Year’s Day for baseball fans. It arrives with hope, fresh grass, clean uniforms, and the quiet belief this might finally be the year everything comes together.

Every year when Opening Day rolls around, I think about the spring when I spent a few days traveling the country with a giant pink rabbit.

When I was a student at the University of Missouri, I was privileged to serve as the Mizzou mascot, Truman the Tiger. Being Truman meant showing up for everything from parades to elementary school assemblies, and occasionally being asked about projects that sounded unusual but fun.

In early 1992, the sports marketing department at Mizzou received a call from Ralston Purina in St. Louis, the parent company of Energizer. They were planning a nationwide Opening Day promotion and were seeking college students to travel to Major League ballparks as part of the campaign. The idea was simple. One student would dress as the Energizer Bunny while another would accompany them as the “bunny guard,” a tongue-in-cheek nod to the concept of a bodyguard.

I was too tall to fit inside the rabbit costume, which is how I ended up as security for a battery mascot.

My partner and I were assigned a route that would take us to Seattle, Houston, and Atlanta. I had flown exactly twice in my life, so it was a huge surprise to learn every leg of the trip was booked in first class.

The first time I boarded, a flight attendant asked if she could take my jacket and hang it for me. When she returned, she asked if I would like it dusted. As a college student used to deciding laundry by the smell test, I didn’t even know that was a service available in the world.

We were given a daily per diem that exceeded what I typically spent in a week, and an advertising agency liaison met us in each city to guide us through the logistics. For a college student, it felt less like a side job and more like stepping into someone else’s life.

The actual appearances were carefully orchestrated. We staged in the bullpen, waiting for the signal, then made our entrance at the end of an inning. Some stadiums refused to interrupt the seventh-inning stretch, which borders on sacrilege in baseball. When our cue came, the rabbit emerged beating his drum while I followed in khakis, a jean jacket with a bright pink bunny embroidered across the back, and sunglasses that made blending in impossible.

The crowd reaction was exactly what you might expect when an oversized pink rabbit interrupts a baseball game. Some people cheered. Some applauded politely. A fair number booed, which felt less personal once I realized they were booing the concept rather than the college kid escorting it off. In Atlanta, a few fans expressed their opinions by tossing tubs of popcorn in our direction as we retreated to the bullpen.

Because the rabbit costume limited mobility, our entrances and exits were quick. At one stadium we were driven partway around the warning track in the back of a pickup truck normally reserved for pitchers. It was the kind of moment where you’re aware you’re in the middle of something that will sound more unlikely the older you get.

Opening Day meant something different to everyone in those ballparks. For lifelong fans, it was tradition. For players, it was the start of another long season. For two college students from Missouri, it was a brief assignment that turned into a story we would carry for the rest of our lives.

When the trip ended, I returned to campus, went back to classes, and resumed life as a student. The rabbit went back into storage somewhere, but the jean jacket followed me home and still hangs in a closet to this day, a reminder of a season that never quite feels as distant as it should. Every spring, when baseball returns and the optimism of Opening Day fills the air, I find myself remembering those few days when my job description included protecting a pink rabbit from flying popcorn.

Tom Brand writes the weekly A Little Bit Like Home column, reflecting on life, family, faith, and the moments that shape who we become. Some memories fade. Others keep going and going and going. Find more at ALittleBitLikeHome.com.