San Diego Chicken  - Feathery chicken mascot who pranced about the baseball diamond during San Diego Padres baseball games in an attempt to get laughs and bolster the moral of the home team and fans. The San Diego Chicken was born when Ted Giannoulas, a 5-foot 3-inch college student majoring in journalism in San Diego State took a job for a radio station in 1974 to dress up as a chicken and deliver Easter eggs at the San Diego Zoo. He did such a good job that the radio station asked him to appear in the same outfit at a San Diego Padres game. The rest is history. The success of his antics on the field have spurred some other major leagues to use mascots during their baseball games, for example, the "Phillie Phanatic" (Dave Raymond), a green creature with a horn like snout; "The Bird" (Clayton Goldstein/Chris Pfingsten), a feathered resident of the Baltimore Orioles; and Fredbird and Redbird mascots for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. With the success of the San Diego Chicken, Ted Giannoulas traveled about the country and the globe performing his zany on-field antics to the rave reviews of thousands of fans. He jokingly billed himself as the "biggest thing in poultry since Colonel Sanders." (TV Guide 6/25/83).  

TRIVIA NOTE: A large, blue-feathered mascot (A la SESAME STREET's Big Bird) called the "Blue Bird of Happiness" appeared on the sports drama THE BAY CITY BLUES/NBC/1983. The Blue Bird of Happiness (played by Marco Rodriquez) works for the Bluebirds, a minor league baseball team and jumps about the ball diamond to rally on the team's fans in Bay City, California.

On the sports sitcom HARDBALL/FOX/1994, a mascot named Hardball (a guy in a baseball uniform with a giant baseball head) appeared as the grumpy team mascot for the Pioneers baseball team.