She was a mascot for the Storm Chasers — and just had to watch Jac Caglianone’s debut
She was there when Jac Caglianone walked up to bat for the first time in Omaha last month, a chilly weeknight she won’t soon forget. She sat down close to the field in Werner Park, home of the Storm Chasers, the Royals’ Triple-A minor-league team.
Every time Caglianone walked to the plate, fans across the stadium grabbed their cell phones.
He was a lot taller than she expected, something Royals fans might notice when the left-handed power hitter plays his first big-league game at Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday.
At 6 feet 5 inches, Caglianone — who made his MLB debut on Tuesday in St. Louis and got his first big-league hit there Thursday — stands about three inches taller than the average major-leaguer.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” said Becca Mann. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”
She actually does know what she expected: a peek at future baseball greatness, the same anticipation that drew scads of fans to the suburban Omaha park to see this young man speeding like a meteor through the Royals’ farm system.
Storm Chasers fans are accustomed to seeing major-league talent on their field — Salvador Perez, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and other past and current Royals stars competed there before coming to Kansas City.
The 22-year-old Caglianone, the Royals’ first-round draft pick in 2024, played the first 12 games of the 2025 season with the Double-A Northwest Arkansas Naturals before arriving in Omaha to crowds of fans waiting to get his autograph.
He also had been in Omaha last year to play for the University of Florida in the College World Series. The CWS was played at the city’s Charles Schwab Field — a 24,000-seat stadium with nearly four times the capacity as Werner Park.
Mann thought it was funny that Caglianone told reporters he thought the Storm Chasers played at the bigger stadium.
She knows Werner Park inside and out. She was a mascot for the Storm Chasers for two summers while she attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studying sports journalism and marketing.
The gig sorta fell into her lap but became something the long-time baseball fan wound up loving.
“I definitely use it as my fun fact whenever I can, like if I play Two Truths and a Lie ... because nobody would guess that,” said Mann, who is managing a coffee shop while in between jobs. “It’s just fun to tell people and show people pictures.”
The night Caglianone arrived gave her a taste of what fans in Kansas City can expect when he walks into The K for the first time next week.
“Just watching him walk out of the dugout, he was very confident,” said Mann, who is 30. “It didn’t seem like he was nervous or anything. He didn’t seem like someone who was hesitating or going to make any errors. He just went into it with full confidence.
“It didn’t seem that playing at that level would get into his head.”
Even if Caglianone didn’t show it, the fans sure felt the weight of what they were witnessing.
“There was a lot of excitement,” said Mann. “I was laughing because we were sitting in front of another family and the daughter had gone and bought a T-shirt with his name and number on it. And the dad made a joke of, ‘Oh, she’s going to get a couple of uses out of it and then it’s going to become a collector’s item.’
“People knew that it was very special getting to be there ... I think everyone understood the gravity of getting to see him in his minor-league debut in Omaha. I kinda assumed he wouldn’t be here this whole summer, but I figured he’d be around hopefully for a couple of weeks.”
The Royals called up Caglianone to Kansas City just days later.
Mascot work is sweaty, bloody
The Royals and their Omaha farm team have a long, unique relationship that began in 1969, making it the third-longest active affiliation in Minor League Baseball.
Mann comes from a long line of baseball fans who happen to live just minutes away from Werner Park, which is located in the Omaha suburb of Papillion. Her father’s cousin’s son played in the minor leagues and appeared in one game with the New York Mets.
“Omaha is really lucky to have that stadium,” Mann said. “Omaha is just so passionate about its sports for any events we ever hold. If you look at how many people came to the (Olympic) swimming trials or how many people come to the CWS and it’s just sold out.
“People just love to go to things. The minor-league stadium is super family friendly ... right on the concourse Werner Park has a merry-go-round and a kids area with blow-up things. They have kids batting cages and a whole kickball area set up to keep them entertained during the games.
“It’s definitely geared for younger kids. So the mascots at Werner Park are out during almost the entire game, at least when I was there, walking around, interacting with the kids, meeting the fans, because so many fans wanted to meet you and have their kid’s picture taken with you.
“People go in and watch baseball, but I don’t think it’s as intense as watching at an MLB stadium.”
Mann went to a Storm Chasers job fair in the spring of 2014, hoping to land a summer job at the stadium. She was interested in an opening described as marketing and promotions, but what the team really needed was mascots.
“I didn’t really know how to say no,” she said.
On the spot they had her slip into the costume of Casey the Blue Lion, a longtime and much beloved mascot. As a little girl she would wait in lines to meet him, “and then it was kind of full circle getting to actually wear the mascot uniform,” she said.
“I’m somebody who is very quiet and introverted, so when I put on the costume and nobody knew who I was I felt like I could put on a much bigger personality and be silly and goofy. People just expect that from mascots.
“So I was able to take on that persona and just be really big with my actions and just a little kooky and crazy.”
She got the job and spent two summers wearing all of the mascot costumes, working home games and making a handful of appearances around town.
The mascots fit the team’s storm-chasing theme. There are five today: Casey, Stormy, Vortex, Sue Nami and Sizzle.
Sizzle is an understatement.
Those costumes “are hot. They get very toasty,” Mann said. “And there’s no fans. Some of the more professional leagues have fans in the helmet, but we did not. The helmet is essentially a football helmet that you put on and then the head is attached to that.
“It’s just very warm and very sweaty. And you’re out there — baseball’s during the summer — on very hot days in the middle of the afternoon just really sweatin’ out there.”
The Vortex costume was the trickiest and heaviest. It was basically walking around inside a giant gray inflatable shaped like a tornado. A battery-operated fan kept it inflated.
If the batteries died, the costume would deflate — and that happened to Mann once while she was standing on the field for the national anthem.
She felt the costume begin to collapse “and I just had to stand there during the national anthem as it deflated,” she said. “You just have to ... drag it back to the mascots’ room as fast as you can.”
And those mascot shoes?
“Even the shoes are giant ... so you had to learn how to best walk in the shoes and not look like you were stomping around but actually look like you were in character,” she said.
She walked “slowly and very carefully,” especially on stadium steps when sometimes she would have to rely on a mascot handler to make sure she didn’t fall.
Oh, but she fell.
At one game she wore a special costume sponsored by Omaha Steaks.
She was a giant corn cob.
She was running because she was late to a meet-and-greet and she tripped over something “and just ate it,” she said.
She got up and kept running.
Only after taking a bunch of photos with fans did she realize she had ripped the costume’s Spandex pants and cut her leg open.
“And all those kids just took a picture with a mascot with blood dripping down its knee,” she said.
High-fiving Eric Hosmer
Mann got to meet Hosmer and Danny Duffy while stuffed inside a costume.
“I think the Storm Chasers are kinda cool because that’s where the Royals send their guys for rehab assignments,” she said, “or when the guys are working their way up to the major leagues.
“And so every time somebody comes to Omaha, especially on those injured reserved, those games fill up. People want to come and see those players because it’s an opportunity to get to see that kind of power without having to travel for it.
“So getting to see when Salvador Perez played there, or even Alex Gordon came down and played when he was on injured reserve, Mike Moustakas, getting to see all those big names and now see them blow up or get really big has been really cool.”
Mann said she watched the draft and got as excited as other Royals fans when the team chose Caglianone last year.
“Truthfully, I didn’t know a ton about him,” she said. “But when you have a team that you love, and they have a prospect that could be really great for their future, it’s hard not to be excited about it.”
Storm Chasers fans had hoped to have Caglianone around for longer than just a handful of games.
“We kinda understand how fast things change on the scene,” she said. “So as soon as I saw that Jac was going to come play in Omaha, I mentioned to my parents, ‘Oh, we should go.’”
She was sure the Royals would call him up, but “it was a lot sooner than we expected,” she said.
Mann hopes Royals fans cherish Tuesday night at The K. The Royals play the Yankees.
“For me, I was just excited to see him make his debut,” she said. “That moment, it’s only ever going to happen once, you’re only ever going to be in that spot watching him make his debut once in your life.
“I would say, in that moment, watch him walk up to the plate just knowing there’s so much opportunity for him in his future and what he can do with the Royals.”
She hopes to get to Kauffman Stadium at least once this season to see Caglianone compete in the big leagues.
But if she doesn’t, she’ll always have Papillion.
This story was originally published June 6, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "She was a mascot for the Storm Chasers — and just had to watch Jac Caglianone’s debut."
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