KEOKUK, Iowa.  "Stormy", the mascot of the Keokuk Grizzlies Arena Football League team, is a cute fuzzy bear who wins the hearts of kids with high fives, pictures and autographs.  "I don't know why they call me 'Stormy', and there aren't too many bears in Iowa, but I love my job," he says through a mesh screen covering his big grin.

Mascot fight!

Despite his gentle nature, Stormy is not one to back down from mascot fights, which are staged to provide entertainment for fans but frequently escalate out of control when one animal hits too hard, or uses a hold that violates the Queensbury Rules.  "I was going at it with 'Ducky', the mascot for the Mississippi Flyway, and she hit below the belt," says Stormy. "What you saw on the highlight film after that was not acting."

Tiger opening up a can of whup-ass on Cardinal

Once the dust has settled, however, clashing mascots often behave much as humans do and become intimate.  After the female's gestation period is complete, the resulting product is a sterile cross-breed, comparable to a mule, the offspring of a horse and a donkey.  "We love our little guy, even though we'll never have grandchildren by him," says Ducky of Storm Bird, a cute and playful fellow who is just beginning to show pin feathers on his paws.

"Oh, yeah, baby--that's it!"

Scientists say there are ecological benefits to cross-breeding mascots, including a wider gene pool into which future mascots may dive, plus a reduction in tedium at many sporting events.  "Species are disappearing every day around the world," says Dr. Ethel Nuringer, a professor of biology at the University of Missouri-Lone Jack.  "Some are dying of boredom watching soccer on ESPN2, and a good mascot fight and roll in the hay provides an evolutionary offset."

"As a matter of fact, I am wearing a Trojan."

But others say the pain endured by half-breed mascot offspring far outweighs whatever remote benefits may accrue to the animal kingdom as a whole. "Imagine how you'd feel," says Tigress, product of a one-night stand between mascots for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers.  "I'm the only teenage bird I know of with stripes on my face and whiskers."

ORLANDO, Florida.  Federal regulators were on hand for last night's game between the Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic amid concerns that a poor shooting night for sophomore forward Glen "Big Baby" Davis could trigger the final shockwave in the financial crisis that his gripped the nation since September.

In a playful mood

"At 289 pounds, Big Baby has simply become too big to fail," said Edward Salloway of the Florida regional office of the Comptroller of the Currency as he drank a Bud Light beer.  "He's one of those institutions like Bank of America or Citicorp that could bring down the nation's financial system, or a shooting guard who tried to take a charge from him."

Most Largest Player . . .

Davis was voted the Most Largest Player in last year's championship series against the Lakers, and is already drawing comparisons to former NBA great Charles Barkley in terms of rebounding, post-up skills and gross food imports.  "Glen is still getting acclimated to big-league eating," said Sean Clifford, a waiter at Charley's on Boyston Street in Boston.  "He paces himself, eating the left side of the menu for dinner, then ordering the right side to take home for a snack later." 

 . . . and yet so delicate.

In the event of a federal takeover, deposits in Davis would be insured by the FDIC and he would in effect become property of all U.S.  taxpayers, regardless of their interest in basketball.  "It's a waste of taxpayer's money," said Marjory Merget, a waitress at Boston's Durgin Park restaurant, which is known for its rude help.  "Why can't they take over somebody cute, like Justin Timberlake."

BOONVILLE, Mo.  To a casual observer, Norm Visbeck is a well-adjusted, mature adult with a steady job at the Missouri Department of Fish and Game.  "I count catfish," he says with obvious pride.  "It's my dream job."

"This here makes one."

But probe ever so gently beneath his placid exterior, like a hand-fisherman "noodling" beneath the surface of still water, and you discover that Visbeck is a seething cauldron of insecurities that manifests itself in little things that are apparent only upon closer inspection; reddened areas on his scalp line and his right ear, for example, where he scratches himself constantly.

Kansas City Athletics

"Norm is one of the lucky ones," says William Altgard of the Center for the Study of Sports and Society at the University of Missouri-Columbia.  "He was diagnosed before the St. Louis Cardinals moved to Arizona" in 1988.  "We put him on medication in junior high school, but two decades later the best we can say is he's coping."

St. Louis Hawks

Visbeck is a "Child of Expansion", a youth who developed an attachment to a professional sports team that later moved, leaving him unable to form emotional bonds or function independently as a fully-formed adult personality.  "I probably shouldn't say this on the internet," notes Altgard, "but he still occasionally wets his bed."

The phenomenon is widespread in the Midwest, which has been hit particularly hard by franchise defections notes Eli Sachetti, a psychiatrist who authored the study.  "Kids in Kansas City, St. Louis and Milwaukee are located in geographical 'hot zones'," he notes.  Kansas City has lost the A's in baseball and the Kings in basketball,  Milwaukee lost the Braves to Atlanta, and St. Louis lost the NBA Hawks to Atlanta, the baseball Browns to Baltimore, and the NFL Cardinals to Phoenix, although the official proclamation by the mayor at the time the football team left told the owners "not to let the Arch hit them in the ass on the way out of town."

Kansas City-Omaha Kings' guard Tiny Archibald

Loss of an NHL team appeared to have no affect on a child's development, Sachetti said.  "We sent questionnaires to a bunch of Minnesota guys who would have been kids when the North Stars moved to Dallas in 1993.  They hadn't noticed-they'd been ice-fishing the whole time."

"Why don't you go watch the Timberwolves or something?"

When a new team in the same sport replaces the old, there is some healing, Sachetti said.  "A's, Royals-what's the difference? They both stink, or stank."  He is concerned that the ailment may be mutating in the face of attempts to cure it, however.  "Free agency replicates on a smaller scale the same loss of expansion heartbreak.  We call it the 'Nomar' effect-all those kids in Boston who grew up wearing Garciaparra pajamas-what are they going to do when they get to college?"