The Inside Track : Morning Briefing : Being a Mascot Can Be Lizardous to Your Health

It was a sense of journalistic adventure, humorist Dave Barry claims, that prompted him to don a giant lizard costume and play Miami Fusion mascot for a night earlier this soccer season.

Now, he knows better.

“It was going pretty well until I wandered into the stadium end zone, where a group of hard-core soccer fans hang out,” Barry wrote. “Going there was a bad idea for two reasons: 1. Serious soccer purists are not fond of the mascot concept; 2. The opposing team had just scored a goal. So the mood in the hard-core zone was unhappy.

“My first inkling of trouble came when a man stuck his face deep into my mouth opening and made a very uncomplimentary remark. . . . [Then] somebody grabbed me, and then somebody else yanked on my tail, and within seconds there were people all around me, shouting and grabbing and pounding on my head.

“The problem with being a mascot in this situation is that you have no way to indicate distress: Your mascot face keeps right on smiling happily. But believe me, the inner lizard was scared.”

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Trivia time: Jeff Bagwell became only the third player since 1900 to walk six times in one game. Who were the two others?

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Soldier on: Now that he knows the Bears are going with the tandem of Shane Matthews and Cade McNown at quarterback, the Chicago Tribune’s Skip Bayless says, “My 5-11 prediction is looking wildly optimistic.”

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St. Louis blues: The Cardinals aren’t going anywhere, but Mark McGwire wishes they were.

“I sort of wish it was like hockey,” he said, “where only five teams don’t make the playoffs.”

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Bay watch: All it took Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Examiner to get into the spirit of the football season was a Monday night game between the 49ers and Raiders.

“We would never want to begrudge you Raiders fans your inalienable right to loathe 49ers fans as sissified, wine-swigging, pate-nibbling dilettantes,” he wrote.

“And far be it from us to tell you 49ers fans that you are not entitled to attack Raiders fans as drunken, box-cutter-wielding, ancestor-worshiping clots.”

Inaccurate stereotypes both, Ratto said. Yes, but cherished all the same.

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Undercover patrol: Kelly Davis, a Chicago cop who has moonlighted as one of Dennis Rodman’s bodyguards, shared an early memory with the Chicago Sun-Times’ Rick Telander.

“I remember our first West Coast trip,” said Davis, a former undercover narcotics officer. “All of Michael Jordan’s guys were in this shiny limo following the team bus, and we’re in this beat-up old Toyota following them. On the bus, the Bulls players are laughing at Dennis. And he says, ‘They’re not my bodyguards, they’re friends who happen to be cops.’

“I heard the bus got quiet after that.”

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Trivia answer: Jimmie Foxx and Andre Thornton.

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And finally: New York Jet Coach Bill Parcells wasn’t impressed when running back Curtis Martin said he wanted to rush for 2,000 yards this season.

“Why not try to get 50 first?” Parcells suggested.