Major League Baseball

So do the Dodgers have a new mascot or not?

Published Apr. 8, 2014 7:30 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

It all started over the weekend during the Los Angeles Dodgers' opening series against the San Francisco Giants.

There was something trolling the grounds that looked an awful lot like mascots do – the big cartoon face, the fuzzy skin, the empty eyes, the poof of hair that sticks out perfectly from underneath a sideways hat.

You know ... classic mascot stuff.

Well it was gallivanting around, posing for pictures, and waving – and supposedly the kids were eating it up.

Dodgers executive vice president of marketing Lon Rosen told the LA Times that “the kids were wild about it.

“They were all taking selfies with it.”

The “it” Rosen is referring to is this:

Looks a lot like a mascot doesn’t it? Except for one thing, it’s definitely not.

“It’s not a mascot,” Rosen said. “It’s a unique performance character.” And apparently it’s just the first of four “its” that the Dodgers will roll out in the coming weeks.

It has no nickname and no gender. It’s too progressive for labels.

And the Dodgers are too progressive for mascots. They are one of only three teams without one now that the Cubs ran the curiously bottomless Clark the Cub out this offseason (to mixed reviews). Only the Yankees and Angels remain and the Dodgers didn’t hold out this long to let those organizations seem like the cool forward-thinking clubs that refuse to conform to the industry standard.

The only mascot they almost had was a crazed fan in a bear suit that did a modified jump-split on the dugout, and they ran him out of town.

The mascot that could have been.

Well, whatever you want to call it, there is something big and weird at Dodgers games now.  Soon there will be more.

share

Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

Major League Baseball