The Philadelphia Phillies (thankfully) didn’t ruin the Phillie Phanatic
After a lawsuit forced the Philadelphia Phillies to redesign their mascot, fans can rest easy: The new-look Phillie Phanatic is actually pretty good.
When news broke that the Philadelphia Phillies planned to debut a new look Phillie Phanatic at the team’s Sunday afternoon matinée pre-preseason showdown with the Pittsburgh Pirates, I’m not going to lie; I got a little nervous.
… okay, maybe a little is putting things mildly.
Maybe I’m a radical, but I firmly believe that the Philly Phanatic is the most important contribution that our fair city has, um, contributed to the greater sports world since his inception in the late-1970s.
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There I go saying ‘his’ like he’s- it’s a real person. I know there is a man in there, but much like his furry, anarcho counterpart across the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, the Phanatic has taken on a personality all his own.
I mean, he was the star of an episode of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ for crying out loud, that’s an honor that even Chase Utley hasn’t been afforded.
Simply put, the Phanatic is an institution.
I thought to myself, oh gosh, what if it’s bad? What if it’s like really bad? Could the Phanatic lose his signature belly? His signature tongue? Oh no, please don’t make him red. As the clock ticked down, the fear became harder to ignore.
And then, out of nowhere, it happened. The Phillies (I’m assuming) posted the Phanatic’s new look to Instagram and… it’s actually pretty good.
What do you think? He’s a little skinnier, has a rather flattering quaff of blue fringe, and his eyes are a little more star-y. Outside of an admittedly strange extended blue tail, I’d venture to say the 6-foot-tall monster from the Galapagos Islands has never looked better.
Rest easy friends, the weekend, spring training, and maybe even the season is safe.
Oh yeah, the Phillies also played a baseball game. It was pretty good too. Yankees‘ defector Didi Gregorius looked great, Christian Bethancourt got hit in the head with an errant Pirate’s bat swing, and the whole NBCS Philly crew was back and better than ever. On an unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon in February, what could be better?
I guess a player not suffering a concussion at the hands of Daniel Amaral, but hey, its only February.
Now granted, there’s no way of knowing exactly how long this new Phanatic will last, as the mascot’s original creators could double-down on their IP lawsuit and say that this new-look creature hasn’t been changed enough to justify an original idea, but we’ll get to that if that day comes.
Next. Rejected changes to the Phanatic. dark
For now, we can take solace in two things: The Philadelphia Phillies (thankfully) didn’t ruin the Phillie Phanatic and the United States Copyright laws are clearly no joke.