PITTSBURGH (AP) — Anyone who went to a Pirates game from 1988-96 has seen Tom Mosser, though he was usually obscured by green feathers and a big yellow beak.
“It will be on my gravestone that I was the Pirate Parrot,” he joked. “Some artists and actors wait on tables. I jumped around in a bird suit.”
Mosser absolutely considers his work as the iconic Pirates mascot art. The former Penn State University cheerleader spent eight years messing with opposing players while riling up crowds during an era of Pirates baseball where the team’s success rivaled that of Pittsburgh’s other two professional sports teams.
His new project combines his love of Pittsburgh sports and lifelong penchant for artistry: a painting Mosser calls “Penguins at the Museum,” depicting five king penguins gazing at a painting of the Stanley Cup, the fifth representing a championship the team is two wins away from securing.
The painting is the latest in Mosser’s “Museum Series,” where he creates images of people and animals looking at paintings hung in museums.
“What would a penguin, if it went to the Carnegie Museum of Art, be enthralled with?” Mosser posited. “It could be fish. In this case, it’s the Cup.”
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The 55-year-old Huntington, Pa., native is a lifelong Pittsburgh sports fan and accomplished artist. Much of his work is done with charity in mind, like the $31,000 he raised for the Animal Rescue League by selling prints and T-shirts of his dog Lucas staring at a painting of a tennis ball.
For “Penguins at the Museum,” Mosser said he reached out to the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation and has received interest.
After retiring as the parrot in 1996, Mosser was commissioned by multiple professional teams to paint murals in their stadiums, including the Amway Center in Orlando and Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco. His largest mural resides in the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, which he said is 200 ft. wide and 30 ft. tall.
He is currently working on two three-story murals for “an unnamed NBA and hockey team,” and recently completed a six-month, 12-piece project for an unspecified NFL team.
It is also worth noting that in 2009, Mosser did a project for the Penguins’ current nemesis, the Nashville Predators. Copies of the painting below were given to every Predators fan who attended the team’s final game that year.
That cannot be held against him too much because Mosser is rooting hard for his Penguins to win their fifth Cup in franchise history, an idea he is no longer taking for granted.
“I’m fairly confident, but after watching Crosby get that concussion against the (Washington) Capitals, it took away all sense of entitlement,” he said. “I think it did for everybody, to really appreciate this. We can take that star player away from your team and suddenly things change. You never know with sports. It’s the ultimate reality show. That’s why it’s so compelling.”
Years before he donned the parrot costume, Mosser spent his childhood watching and drawing sports. He channeled those passions into a lucrative gig at Penn State designing program and media guide covers for football games.
Mosser planned to leave Pennsylvania to be a designer for Sporting News when his sister told him the Pirates were having auditions for a new mascot. After beating out 300 or so people for the job, he decided to “avoid reality for a few years,” which turned into the eight years he spent as the parrot.
“It was a great job,” Mosser said. “I got tons of free time. I was able to hang out, work in my studio and kind of get better.”
His predecessor was the infamous Kevin Koch, who was accused of dealing cocaine to players during the 1985 MLB drug trial. Jokes about the previous parrot dogged Mosser, but he took them in stride.
“Every so often somebody would say, ‘Hey Parrot! You still doing cocaine?'” he said. “I was at a parade when this happened once. I see this white line in the middle of the road. So I get on all fours, and I make it look like I’m snorting the white line. I thought that was probably not the wisest thing to do. The guys loved it. But if somebody had an iPhone, I would’ve been in big trouble.”
His time with the Pirates during the height of their late-’80s/early-’90s resurgence helped him appreciate the highs and lows of professional sports. He vividly remembers the Sid Bream game during the 1992 NLCS that ended the team’s season and indirectly led to 21 losing seasons of Pirates baseball.
“Four of us went out to the dugout at Three Rivers (Stadium) and sat outside knowing that that would be the last time any baseball was going to be played there, at least any more playoff games,” Mosser said. “It was really haunting, it was dark, just a couple of lights on. We were in the dugout, knowing that this thing had just happened.”
That perspective has given him a greater appreciation for this current era of Penguins hockey that has in the last decade produced four Stanley Cup appearances and two wins, with a potential third on the way.
“That’s the one thing about going out and watching the Penguins play,” he said. “How often do you get to go out and cheer in public? Just let out a big cheer of joy? I think that’s one of the great things about sports. But you have to experience the negative side to truly experience that.”
During his stint as the parrot, Mosser continued to work on his art. He did the commemorative paintings for the 1991 and 1992 Stanley Cup-winning Penguins teams, and was an instrumental figure in designing Iceburgh, the Penguins’ mascot who has endured for 25 years.
Iceburgh was “sort of emulating the Pirate Parrot, but a look all of its own,” Messer said. “It’s based on a king penguin. It’s got the orange swoosh.
“That’s a mobile work of art, Iceburgh is,” Mosser reminisced, though he does wish the Penguins had “made him fatter. Make him a little bit chubbier.”
Mosser said “Penguins at the Museum” captures his personality well because “I’m not an ultra-serious guy and this is sort of very painterly but it still has a sense of humor.
“That’s what art should do,” he continued. “It should move people to smile or cry, but because of a good feeling. That’s sort of my style.”
Making Pittsburgh sports fans smile and feel good. Spoken like a true Pirate
