By SCOTT BROWN
Florida Today

MELBOURNE, Fla. - The top half of the fifth inning has ended and the fun is just starting for Gene Albury and Dominick DiPasquale.

"Here we go," DiPasquale says cheerily as he and Albury head for the roof of the home dugout at Space Coast Stadium.

Verne Troyer, a/k/a "Mini-Me," leads the World's Largest Chicken Dance at Oktoberfest Zinzinnati from a stage on Fountain Square last year. (Patrick Reddy photo) | ZOOM |

There was a time when DiPasquale was not quite so enthusiastic about what is a requirement for all stadium ushers. But now, as the song with Oktoberfest origins brings the sparse crowd to life, he and Albury make quacking motions with their hands, flap their arms and then swivel their hips - all with a smile on their faces.

Fans clap and all but cluck along with the ushers, proving the Chicken Dance is as popular at Space Coast Stadium as it is at wedding receptions. It has outlasted a team and even, to some degree, the man that brought it here. It has also won over ushers who are generally both skeptical and self-conscious about doing it at first.

Take DiPasquale, who is in his seventh year as a stadium usher.

The first year the Chicken Dance became a part of spring training and Brevard County Manatees games was 1998 - the year after the Florida Marlins, once the seasonal tenants at Space Coast Stadium, won the World Series. Not surprisingly, the Marlins packed the stadium for their first Grapefruit League home game.

"They had a full house here and (the ushers) are watching each other," DiPasquale said before a recent Manatees game. "You looked around and saw 8,000 people and said, 'Oh my gosh, what am I doing? I don't even know what the Chicken Dance is.' After you do it two or three times, it's really simple."

It's simple enough for both grandmothers and grandsons to do, and it's not unusual to see second-graders and septuagenarians taking part in the Space Coast Stadium tradition.

It should not be a surprise that the Chicken Dance is popular at festive events since, legend has it, it was introduced to the United States in 1981 at an Oktoberfest in Tulsa, Okla.

The American translation of der ententanz is duck dance. However, the German band that played during the 1981 Tulsa Oktoberfest could only score a chicken suit for its performance and the Chicken Dance, as we know it, was born.

How it got to Space Coast Stadium is just as interesting. Andy Dunn, the director of Brevard operations at Space Coast Stadium, first started playing the Chicken Dance when he worked for the Chicago Cubs' Double-A team in Orlando. It quickly became popular because one of the batboys, who had dwarfism, would dance to the song in the on-deck circle. Dunn said the act became so popular he and some other folks lobbied David Letterman to put Eric Harding on his show.

"When he shook his backside, it looked like a duck," Dunn said. "Every night he'd get a standing ovation."

Dunn took Harding to Kissimmee, Fla., when he went to work for the Houston Astros, but when Dunn subsequently was hired by the Marlins and came to Viera in 1998, Harding stayed in Orlando.

The idea of instituting the Chicken Dance would have died if Dunn had listened to popular opinion.

"When I first brought it up," Dunn said, "everyone said, 'That's stupid."' Six years later, it is a "100 percent job requirement," said Dunn, who briefly went to work for the Marlins in Miami before returning to Space Coast Stadium last spring. "The fans, I think, have really gotten into it."

Lynne Ficalora and her family certainly got into it at a recent game. Ficalora said they always go to a Manatees game when they visit her parents in Melbourne for Easter.

One reason the Long Island residents enjoy the games is quirky things like the Chicken Dance.

When asked if she could see anyone doing the Chicken Dance during New York Mets games at Shea Stadium, Ficalora said, "No way. You can barely get people to do the wave."

A couple of rows up from Ficalora's seat, it didn't take much prodding to get the kids who attended the game for Brian Leitz's eighth birthday party to do the dance.

Laura Leitz, Brian's mother, said her 11-year-old daughter Chelsea would do the Chicken Dance on the field if she were allowed. As for where the dance ranks among the kids' favorite activities, she said, "probably second after (chasing) a foul ball."

Albury, a Viera resident who is in his fifth year as an usher, has as much fun with it as the kids. Not that it didn't take him a while to adjust to dancing on a dugout while people watched.

"The first time you do it, it's embarrassing. It's really embarrassing when you're the only one on the dugout," Albury said, recalling his first Chicken Dance. "The first year was brutal. Now I enjoy it."

The ushers have gained a small measure of fame from doing the Chicken Dance. One fan who is a regular at spring-training games has gotten all of the ushers who have danced to sign a baseball, said DiPasquale and Bill Sexton, another usher.

"We try to get some of the staff to join us," Sexton said, "but they won't do it."

Dunn admitted he has never joined the ushers for the dance "Would I?" Dunn said with a smile. "I'm not an usher."