Counting down the greatest mascots, including Crazy Crab and Mr. Met

Earlier this summer, Jimothy became an internet star. He is a short-bodied, hunchbacked raccoon filmed in a Seattle neighborhood by a woman whose video generated millions of views.

She named him Jimothy because "he looks like a Jimothy," which is as good a reason for a name as any.

Jimothy was a big thing, but I wasn't aware of him until the Seattle Mariners added "Jimothy" to the "salmon race" they hold at every home game and several of their players began wearing "Jimothy" T-shirts emblazoned with his image.

I thought Jimothy was a new mascot, but it turns out he isn't. However, he got me to thinking . . . even without Jimothy, what are the greatest mascots in sports history?

A local angle: When the Solano Steelheads minor league baseball team played in Vacaville, "Sammy the Steelhead" was a good mascot. Daily Republic writer Jess Sullivan donned the costume for reasons I don't remember (was it for an article? Probably, but knowing what newspaper reporters earned, it could have been a side gig). After the Steelheads folded, the Solano Thunderbirds collegiate team came to town and their mascot (Travis the Thunderbird? Something like that) was a step down – particularly because the kid in the uniform would walk around with the mascot head thrown back so he could breathe, leaving Travis looking like he'd been decapitated. I suspect there were children who were traumatized by Travis (if that was indeed his name).

However, this rabbit trail led me to this point: What are the greatest mascots in major league sports history? Here are my top eight:

8. The Coyote. Ever since I heard someone say that the San Antonio Spurs mascot looks like a guy who is paranoid because he's high on drugs, I've been amused by this mascot. His bug-eyed look draws you in and keeps you watching him, despite the action on the court.

7. King Cake Baby. The New Orleans Pelicans mascot is the stuff of nightmares, a baby that looks like it comes from a horror movie. He's based on the plastic "babies" found in king cakes during Mardi Gras. In a world filled with puppet-looking mascots, King Cake Baby looks more like an old-school baby doll: One that would threaten to kill you right after your parents went to sleep.

6. Gritty. The Philadelphia Flyers mascot looks like a crazed Muppet, one that might pull out a switchblade and stab, then mock you. Something about Philadelphia makes for great mascots and Gritty – who debuted in 2018 – is the best recent addition to the mascot world..

5. Crazy Crab. The anti-mascot, created for the San Francisco Giants, with the idea of him being terrible. It worked. Crazy Crab would come on the field in the mid-1980s and fans would boo and throw things at him. Kudos to the Giants for opting against mimicking what the Padres and Phillies had done (see below) and choosing a road less traveled. The Giants now have Lou Seal, who is a pretty good mascot, but a pretty average mascot.

4. Mr. Met. An original member of the organization, created shortly after the Mets joined the National League in 1962. Mr. Met is a large baseball with a cap on his head. The name is brilliant, as is the fact that there is also a Mrs. Met. Earlier this year, Mr. Met won my heart by doing goofy moves behind a sportscaster who was sharing somber news that the team fired manager Carlos Mendoza.

3. San Diego Chicken. The O.G. modern mascot. The chicken originally worked for San Diego radio station KGW, but soon was present at nearly every pro sports event in San Diego. The man in the suit (Ted Giannoulas) was fired by the radio station, lawsuits followed and the character (performed by Giannoulas) was reborn as "The Famous Chicken," appearing at games and on TV shows. The chicken was a master of physical humor and was the precursor for modern mascots.

2. Phillie Phanatic. He was San Diego Chicken 2.0, arriving two years after the chicken broke through. The difference? The Phanatic is still here, 50 years later. He's funny and likable and absurd. Also, it's not clear what he is. Well, maybe it is clear: He's a phanatic.

1. The Tree. Leave it to Stanford University to have the most nonsensical mascot of all – a tree. However, its googly eyes and the fact that it was involved in the greatest mascot brawl in history (in 1995, with Oski the Bear, the mascot for the University of California) gives it street cred. Stanford's team are called the Cardinal (after the color, not the bird) and the mascot is a tree. Of course it doesn't make sense.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

The secret way to bring joy to your job – at least for me

The old saying, "find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life," was likely spoken by someone who never worked. However, if you can find a part of your job you love, that makes it seem less like work.

At least that's my philosophy. I've been fortunate enough to have jobs I've like since I landed my first newspaper job at age 21 – and really, I liked most of my jobs before that. But newspapers and writing (even for a non-newspaper) are fun to me.

But you know what's more fun? And you know what I've been doing since I landed my first newspaper job?

Pasting heads of people on other people's bodies in photos. Over and over and over.

If my LinkedIn profile was accurate, the first listed skill would be, "pasting co-workers or friends' heads on the bodies of people in photos." I'd have 40 years' experience, using scissors and tape; Photoshop; the Microsoft Paint app; Copilot and whatever else is needed.

Few things make me laugh more than a ridiculous image where a co-worker's head is pasted on the body of a 3-year-old blowing out candles to celebrate a birthday. Or pasting a friend's head on a body in the background of a crowd celebrating Richard Nixon's election. Or pasting a photo of my head as a child on the body of Black Panther Party member protesting in the late 1960s.

I was a sports writer for 20 years. I was a news writer for an additional six years. I've been a business writer for nearly 12 years. I've been a columnist for 40 years.

But ask people who work with me what I do and one of the first things they'll tell you is that I make ridiculous images by placing the heads of people I know on bodies in photos.

Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

I got my start doing this as a boy sports writer, with Ted and Mike – my first two professional co-workers and mentors, who were amused by the over-enthusiastic guy who added their heads to black-and-white photos that came off the printer from The Associated Press.

It continued at the Daily Republic. In the sports department, I hung a huge poster of the cover of The National, the short-lived national sports newspaper, with my head pasted over that of legendary auto racer A.J. Foyt. The reason? The headline said, "The toughest SOB in sports." It remains in my possession.

When my son Chad (who is now 35) was a baby, I'd routinely add his head to bodies of politicians – Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton and other 1990s figures. Lil' Chad would be speaking to Congress or shaking hands with the Senate Majority Leader.

I have no idea why this so amuses me. I know it also amuses my co-workers, but they get nowhere near the joy out of my shenanigans as I do. I suspect it sometimes irritates them.

But . . . man, it's funny to put someone's head on a body that doesn't belong to them. AI makes it simpler, which somehow makes it less satisfying. Still, I've created images of co-workers that way (my favorites include one of a friend wearing a superhero cape and another with former Daily Republic writer and current co-worker Nick DeCicco hugging the American flag like Donald Trump did several years ago.)

For someone who is fortunate enough to spend more than 40 years doing something he likes and being paid, it's curious that pasting heads on bodies brings me so much joy. It wouldn't be enough to make an untenable job fun – something I know from experience – but in my 60s, I'm as amused by my own stupidity as I was in my 20s.

It just goes to show you: Things tangential to our jobs – relationships, problem-solving, moments of unexpected fun, organized non-work activities (early in my days as the DR sports editor, we would have nightly, wild chair races around the building after deadline, something that surely violated OSHA rules but hopefully is beyond the statute of limitations), pasting photos of people's heads on other photos – are often what we remember the most.

As we always say, find a job that lets you do something that regularly amuses you and you'll still work a lot, but you'll have more fun.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Wading into the food wars on whether hamburgers are sandwiches, other hot-button issues

It's perhaps the most divisive issue in modern America society, more so than whether we should defund ICE, whether Hermione Granger should have married Harry Potter or if there should be rule changes in baseball to re-emphasize starting pitchers.

The divisive issue, of course, is whether a hamburger is a sandwich. You've probably heard the arguments on each side. 

On one side, you have, "Of one side, of course it's a sandwich, since a 'sandwich' is portable food made up of two slices of bread with a filling between them. That describes a hamburger!"

On the other side, "It's not a sandwich, because it's a hamburger. They're different things, you nitwit."

The good news for the pro-sandwich group: A significant majority of Americans surveyed (73%) agree that a hamburger is a sandwich. The bad news? Only 40% of those surveyed say a hot dog is a sandwich –  and what is a hot dog if not a hamburger with a frankfurter substituted for a hamburger patty?

Great food debates are fun, because we often have strong feelings that are backed by such facts as "it has its own section in most menus," or "if you'd never heard of it before, you'd consider it a sandwich" or "they're different things, you nitwit!"

There are, of course, debates that go beyond the Great Sandwich Divide. And of course the people at yougov.com asked Americans about them. I'm here to settle these issues once and for all, regardless of whether my view is popular. Being right isn't always popular and being popular doesn't make you right. Remember that tanning beds were seen as healthy, that "Out of Africa" won the best picture Oscar the same year "The Color Purple" was nominated and that Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota. Temporary popularity does not translate to being correct.

Anyhoo, back to food. let's start with the first question: Are hamburgers and hot dogs sandwiches? The correct answer is no, you nitwit. See above.

Another issue is whether sandwiches should be cut diagonally, horizontally or neither (another argument against hamburgers as "sandwiches." Only a sociopath would cut a hamburger in two). A plurality of Americans choose diagonally, which makes sense if most Americans are 4 years old. (When my youngest son was 4, he cried when I gave him a sandwich cut horizontally and wanted me to cut it "like Connie," who watched him two days a week and apparently cut it diagonally. My stance may be rooted in the trauma of that event).

Another issue: Do you like ketchup on eggs? Ketchup is our greatest condiment, despite another survey in which deranged Americans picked peanut butter for that honor. However, ketchup is not appropriate on eggs, which don't need additional flavor. Fifty-seven percent of Americans agree with me (the first time that's been true since I argued in 1977 that "Happy Days" was the greatest-ever TV show) and only 32% like or love ketchup on eggs. Not coincidentally, that's roughly the same percentage of people who think the moon landing was staged (and it may be the same people. No offense, of course, you nitwits).

Whether leftover pizza needs to be reheated is another issue on which we lack unity. Should you eat leftover pizza cold, straight out of the refrigerator, or must you heat it up? This one has an easy answer: You can heat it up if you want, but it's fine (better) cold. I'm right on this for two reasons: I worked at a pizza parlor for nearly five years, making me an expert on the subject. Also, there was the old ESPN morning show, "Cold Pizza." The show wasn't great, but the name was a nod to the fact that leftover pizza can/should be eaten cold. My opinion is not mainstream – two-thirds of respondents have been influenced by Big Microwave and reheat their pizza, a gigantic waste of energy.

There are plenty of other issues discussed in the survey, including whether cilantro tastes like soap (correct answer. No. Soap tastes better). 

But we'll conclude with a question I've never considered and one that shows that there is a certain percentage of Americans whose brains are wired wrong. The survey-takers asked in what order you should fill a bowl while having cereal and milk. Shockingly, 4% of us put milk in the bowl, then add cereal. Do those same people put Parmesan cheese on a plate, then add spaghetti? Do they put salt in a bag, then add French fries? Do they put cookies on the counter and then pour milk over the top? Do they put ketchup on a plate and then dump scrambled eggs on top?

Perhaps most importantly, do they consider hamburgers sandwiches, cut them diagonally and then reheat them with their pizza?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

 

(Irrational) confidence and the ability to escape a sinking car or score a World Cup goal

I first heard the phrase "irrational confidence" about 15 years ago, from famed sports writer Bill Simmons, who used it describe NBA players who assumed they could make any shot, often without solid supporting evidence.

J.R. Smith was irrationally confident. So was Nick Young. Trae Young remains irrationally confident.

Irrationally confident players have a swagger. They're charming because they're sure they're the best player on the court, regardless of evidence. One of my favorite all-time irrationally confident players was former Celtics forward Antoine Walker, whom a sports writer once asked, "Why do you shoot so many threes (three-point shots)?" to which Walker replied, "because there aren't fours."

There are many irrationally confident humans beyond the NBA. To no one's surprise, most of them are male.

A recent YouGov survey asked Americans how well they think they would do in various challenging situations: Could they pass the U.S. citizenship test, perform CPR on a person whose heart has stopped, survive a week alone in the wilderness or safely land a passenger airplane relying only on air traffic control assistance? You know, the type of situations that have been the plot for hundreds of movies and TV show episodes over the years and are ridiculous every time.

In virtually all those situations – particularly those that involve something that 12-year-old boys pretend to do – men were far more confident of their ability to succeed than women. Compared to women, men were 10% more confident that they could do a stranger's job for a day. They were 23% more confident (more than twice as much) that they could escape from an underwater, sinking car. They were 15% more confident that they could survive a week being lost at sea on a life raft.

Let's be clear: This is not suggesting that 41% of men could successfully escape a sinking car or that 46% of men could survive a week alone in the wilderness.

That's the percentage of men who think they could. Because most men (including me) have an unearned confidence in our ability to do hard things, mostly because we've watched someone do it on TV and have critiqued their performance from our couch. ("You have to give the plane plenty of runway to land, dummy!" we shout at an actor pretending to land a plane.)

I've broached this subject before and I don't know the correct takeaway. Are men are absurdly self-confident? Should women should be more brash in their assessment of their abilities?

In the survey, there were a few situations where women were more confident than men. More women thought they could perform CPR on a person whose heart stopped. More women thought they could deliver a baby in an emergency (still, 27% of men said they could, which seems absurd).

Some of the options seemed like they were dreamed up by a 12-year-old boy (or me): Could you hotwire a car in under a minute? Could you beat a chimpanzee in a fight if you were unarmed? Could you successfully navigate to a destination using only the stars?

Of course, more men than women thought they could do each of those. (I'm not sure I even want to talk to the 12% of men who thought they could win a fight against a chimpanzee.)

The YouGov people also broke down the information by different demographics. Unsurprisingly, Republicans were more confident that they could perform most challenging tasks (MAOA: Make America Overconfident Again). Older people are more confident that they could perform emergency medical tasks (a Heimlich maneuver or perform CPR), likely because we were trained on how to do that 40 years ago and still think we could do it.

Confidence is a strange trait. It's painful to watch someone who lacks confidence, but it's irritating to watch someone who is overconfident. I love watching irrationally confident athletes or kids (I'm forever amused by 10-year-olds who think they can do things that they clearly are incapable of doing), but am bugged by overconfident regular adults.

While my confidence level is admittedly closer to irrational than underconfident, when I look at the list of options provided in the survey, I suspect the only ones in which I could succeed are doing a random person's job for a day (presuming it was something easy) and beat a chess grandmaster in a single game.

Explanation of the second point: I don't play chess, but that question doesn't say the "game" is chess. I think I could beat a chess grandmaster in a single game of Uno or Trouble, if we played enough times. (An area in which I have supreme confidence: The ability to find loopholes in phrases that allow me to succeed.)

Oh, and a few weeks after the first survey, YouGov released another survey at the end of the World Cup, asking whether people thought they could score on a penalty kick in a World Cup match. The survey revealed that 24% of men believe they could accomplish that ridiculous feat, while 15% of women thought they could.

The most confident group? Fifty-eight percent of Republican men under 45 said they could score in that scenario. I can only assume they would do so after landing a passenger airplane with air traffic control help, then escaping a sinking car on the way to the World Cup match.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

In an era of social isolation, board games are still popular

I've never finished a game of Monopoly. Maybe I'm impatient. Maybe I'm a bad landlord. Maybe I'm opposed to evaluating property based on its cash value.

Maybe I don't really understand the rules and can't strategize properly. But across decades of life, I've never fully finished America's most popular board game. Like Teddy Roosevelt (I'm interpreting history loosely here), I just want to break up monopolies, not try to build one.

Fortunately, I'm not as strident about other board games. Trouble? Sure, I'll play it. Scrabble? I'll try (and lose to Mrs. Brad). Checkers? Of course. Yahtzee? Absolutely, so I can yell "Yahtzee!" even if I don't get one. Sorry? I would if I ever had the game, just to say "Sorr-rry" to my opponent.

It turns out that most Americans enjoy board games. Or tolerate them, with 21% saying they love board games and 44% liking them. That's according to the folks at YouGov, who should get paid for being sources of numerous columns for me each year.

For those of us who think of "board games" as an old-fashioned form of entertainment, there's a counterintuitive result: The older you get, the less likely you are to say you love board games. The people who love them the most are those under 30, the people who love them the least are 65 and older.

Of course, the survey also asked about other ways to play games, including on their phones or video games (either on a computer or a console). All of those were more popular than board games, which are, of course, played on a 2-by-4 piece of wood if I understand correctly correct. That's why checkers is so hard: Balancing the game board on a 2-by-4 is a challenge!

Anyhoo, far more Americans say that winning board games is "somewhat important" than those who say it's "very important." That's a distinction that might be handy to know before you play Candy Land or Battleship with someone, right?

(Side note: While I'm not super competitive–which is what super competitive people always say, I guess–I tend to subscribe to the philosophy that President Obama shared with NBA star Anthony Edwards on a video promoting his new library: "What do you call someone who doesn't mind losing? A loser.")

When it comes to what board games Americans play, it's good to see that the traditional games remain the most played. Among those that have been played "many times" by people, the leaders are Monopoly (again, I've never finished a game), checkers, Scrabble, Connect Four and Yahtzee. Also in the top 10 are Battleship and The Game of Life, both of which have tiny plastic pieces that are easily dropped and lost forever to the vacuum.

A few games have big differences in how popular they are with older and younger people. The games that are much more popular with older Americans include Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit and Backgammon. Games that are much more popular with younger Americans include Snakes and Ladders, Mancala and Codenames, none of which I know (although I'm now learning that Snakes and Ladders is a more lethal version of Chutes and Ladders).

In many ways, the survey results should be good news. During an era when we're constantly told that people are becoming more isolated and there is less social interaction, a majority of Americans like playing games that require you to sit with someone for a while, talk and consider strategy.

Of course, some are really a waste of time as you roll dice and keep landing on some old-timey property name that your cousin knew to buy and has built a bunch of homes (hotels? Something), making it cost more to stay there than you have left in your bank account.

I presume. I've never played long enough to get to that point, because Monopoly is stupid.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.