Follow Up: Randall and the Sausage Race (a follow up to a follow up)

Randall and the Sausage Race: Follow Up to the "Not on the List" Blog Entry

Here is the story. I've done my best to cobble together as much of the absurdity of the situation as possible.

First, an explanation of the Sausage Race. (I know, totally sounds like a porno, but it's not - at least in this context.)

This is a clip of the Racing Sausages at Miller Park:


This was before they added a fifth sausage, the Chorizo, in order to embrace the Latin community.


This is people putting on those awesome costumes:


This is from the Wikipedia entry on the the Sausage Races. (Yes, there is a full, in depth article on Wikipedia about the Sausage Race. And after today, there will be a full length blog entry about it.)

Origins

The race originated as a virtual scoreboard race in the early 1990s. The Associated Press quotes Laurel Prieb, former Brewers vice president, as saying the actual sausage mascots were introduced "as a lark" around 1995, and only on Sundays to appease kids in the crowd.

The earliest record of the sausage race in live-action took place on Sunday, May 29, 1994 when the Brewers retired the number 19 of their future Hall of Famer, Robin Yount. The race had begun as a routine sausage race on the old off-black and off-white replay board at County Stadium. As the theme from Chariots of Fire played and the animated sausages made their way around Milwaukee en route to County Stadium, the sausages appeared in live form for the first time from the left field fence and raced to what would become a legendary Milwaukee Brewers tradition.

By 2000, the final year for the Brewers at County Stadium, the costumed racers became a full-time attraction.

There were only three sausages when the race was introduced: the bratwurst, the Polish and the Italian. The hot dog was not introduced until the mid-1990s.^[2]

In 2003, the incident Rene referred to in her comments yesterday occurred. Some innocent Brewers fans were just innocently donning costumes as giant encased meat, trying to innocently run around a major league ballpark for of hundreds of people (I'd say more, but it was the Brewers in 2003, so hundreds is probably being generous). And this 'Roid Raging A-Hole who isn't on the Mitchell Report (somehow) comes along with a bat and---well, you'll see.

And now, my friends, the piece de resistance. The video of the horrific incident. Brace yourselves. It's awful:


If you would like to read ESPN's full coverage of the incident, click here.