Brewers/Klement's Racing Sausages
The Racing Sausages have been a spectacle at Milwaukee Brewers games since the 1990s. In the early days, the race was nothing more than a video on the scoreboard at Milwaukee County Stadium. Originally there were only three sausages: the Bratwurst (#1), Polish Sausage (#2), and the Italian Sausage (#3), and they were computer generated, that is until one game, when the REAL sausages picked up where the video left off, running in from left field to a finish line at home plate. Since then, the three sausages have added a fourth, the Hot Dog (#4). Eventually, the video was thrown out, and the sausages began racing every game, not just on Sundays.
[edit] "Sausagegate"
Of course, all this made the sausages famous in the state of Wisconsin, but the sausages made the leap to national stardom on July 9, 2003 when then Pirate Randall Simon whacked the Italian Sausage over the head with a wood bat during the race, sending the sausage and the person inside the costume to the ground and setting off a chain reaction that also collected the Hot Dog.
Simon was cited for disorderly conduct and fined $432 for the incident. The people inside each costume were treated for scraped knees.
[edit] Major League Participants
These major leaguers have raced as a sausage:
