The Rise and Fall of the Fanatic

In 1979, the Yankees commissioned Bonnie Erickson to make a mascot named Dandy. She and her partner Wade Harrison went on to design more than a dozen other mascots across all four major sports leagues. Dave Raymond has created more than 130 mascots from scratch for minor league and college teams. The creative process of designing a character like gritty might set a team back between $80,000 and $300,000.