What does a college intern stuffed into a furry costume on a 99° day have to do with baseball? Nothing.
What does a sentient buckeye with a human body and a striped shirt have to do with college football? Also nothing.
And lastly, what does an anarchy-loving, nudist orange blob have to do with hockey? Sadly, the answer here is nothing as well.
Mascots are an oddity that is damn near impossible to explain. Why do sports teams have these ridiculous creatures prowling the stands, taking pictures with drunk fans and terrifying young children? Nobody knows and honestly I’m not sure if we have the mental fortitude to understand the reasoning if we were to learn it.
Despite their mystifying existence, mascots can be a lot of fun. Who doesn’t want to watch a gorilla dunk a basketball? Or a big green, uh, something ride around on an ATV and get into a fight with an octogenarian? There’s something so asinine about a mascot that we just can’t help but love them.
Of course, it’s impossible to talk about mascot tattoos without bringing up the one-and-only Gritty. The tale of the orange one is something that could only happen in Philadelphia. For eons the Phillie Phanatic ruled Philadelphia as the one and only mascot. Then the local hockey team, the Flyers, decided to introduce some competition into the City of Brotherly Love by creating one of their own. To say that Gritty was met with derision would be the understatement of the century. Reactions ranged from “Oh God, what is that thing?” to “Kill it with fire, it’s horrible!” There really wasn’t a middle ground, the entire nation was appalled.
It was here that something interesting happened. Everybody in Philadelphia, and I do mean literally everybody, changed their opinions in an instant and fell in love with Gritty. They started to defend Gritty with every ounce of their being. In their eyes, the world had come to kick Philadelphia in the ass once again and they had to defend their beautiful orange blob. It pains me to admit it, they were right, Gritty is wonderful.
Gritty also happens to be the most tattooed mascot. And honestly, it’s not even close. There are so many Gritty tattoos. It rules so much. So let’s kick things off with a special tribute section to the mighty Gritty before continuing on with some more mascot tattoos.
We could have done the entire article with nothing but tattoos of Philadelphia’s orange-haired, nightmare-inducing anti-hero, but that seems unfair.
Source: www.inkedmag.com