Mascot race

A mascot race is a promotional sports entertainment competition consisting of costumed runners racing around a baseball field, usually as a form of between-innings entertainment. The racers are typically anthropomorphized inanimate objects or mascots related to local culture, a sponsor's products, or baseball culture. The outcomes of races can both be decided in a legitimate race or may be predetermined for purely entertainment purposes.

The best known of this type of race is the Milwaukee Brewers' Sausage Race. Introduced in the early 1990s, the race features bratwurst, Polish sausage, Italian sausage, hot dog, and chorizo characters. The race takes place before the sixth inning of every home game. Players have also been involved; during a 2003 race during a Brewers–Pittsburgh Pirates game, Pirates slugger Randall Simon hit one of the sausages with a baseball bat, causing the woman in the costume to require medical care. Milwaukee police fined Simon. The incident subsequently became known as "Sausagegate".

The Sausage Race inspired the creation of the Great Pierogi Race in Pittsburgh. A rivalry has developed between the Sausages and the Pierogies, and the two groups compete twice yearly in relay races. Another well known mascot race is the Presidents Race of the Washington Nationals. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft mascots compete. As a running joke, Teddy Roosevelt did not win until the Nationals made the playoffs for the first time in 2012. Like the Milwaukee Sausages, the Presidents also have a rivalry with the Pierogies.

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