Saints Ponder Getting Rid of Swine, Instead Unveil “Alternative Fats” As New Ball Pig For 2017 https://t.co/cTez5I6spn pic.twitter.com/ClwuAi7Q8l
— St. Paul Saints (@StPaulSaints) May 17, 2017
An independent professional baseball team in Minnesota revealed the name of its newest mascot Wednesday, but the Trump Administration might not like it. Meet “Alternative Fats,” the Saint Paul Saints latest live pig mascot.
The team, which plays in the North Division of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, which isn’t affiliated with MLB, made its announcement in a press statement filled with, well, alternative facts, the infamous phrase coined by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway during a January episode of “Meet the Press.”
“After choosing between over a million pigs [or two] the Saints found one that could run like a gazelle [or waddle like a duck] and eats three small meals a day [or gorges on anything within smelling distance of its snout,]” the statement said. “Alternative Fats will enter the field each game like no other pig before him, with a white ground covering draped from his mansion-style pigpen to home plate for the billions of Saints fans to shower him with love and admiration.”
And it continued: “Alternative Fats will be so HUUUUGE it will make all other pigs jealous. Alternative Fats will go down in the pantheon of the greatest mascot names in the history of sports and we know a thing or two about great sports mascots. Welcome to the Saints Orwellian version of Animal Farm.”
[From the archives: Never buy off-brand Silly String and other lessons from mascot boot camp]
The press statement credited fan Daniel Jones of Northfield, Minn., for coming up with the clever moniker for a contest ran by the Star Tribune, which the press statement said garnered more than 4 million entrants. (Yes, the Tribune disputed that alternative fact.)
The pig’s clever name does, however, continue the string of puntastic past iterations of the Saints’ porky mascot’s name by playing off current events. Last year, for instance, the pig was Little Red Porkette, in a tribute to the late singer Prince. The year before that, the pig was named Stephen Colboar. And the list goes on: Kim Lardashian, Kris Hamphries, Brat Favre, Slumhog Millionaire, Boarack Ohama and, um, Kevin Bacon.
This is the 25th year the pig has been the Saints mascot, since it was introduced in 1993 when Libby Veeck, the wife of owner and team President Mike Veeck, got the idea.
