My Mascot Can Beat Up Your Mascot: The Toughest, Booziest and Weirdest Mascots in Sports

We’re placing prop bets on a variety of scenarios featuring our favorite mascots.

One of the things we love most about sports are the mascots. Whether tough, funny, creepy, adorable or utterly incomprehensible, every mascot is lovable in its own way. Another thing we love is to place prop bets on sports in America. We decided to match up several of our favorite mascots and make prop bets on who would beat who in different contests. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.

Boxing match between Sparty and the Fighting Irish Leprechaun

Fighting Irish Leprechaun:

In one corner we have Sparty the Spartan, proud representative of Michigan State. He’s been trained from birth to be a warrior, defeating everyone from Persians to Macedonians and Athenians. How could anyone ever beat him in hand-to-hand combat?

That’s where the Leprechaun comes in (he doesn’t have a name). Leprechauns have magic powers. On top of that, he is not any ordinary leprechaun. Only a drunken brawler is fit to represent the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. He does magic, he punches hard and after drinking that much whiskey, he can’t feel pain. We give him a fair chance at beating Sparty.

• Odds: Even

Drinking contest between Bernie the Brewer and Sourdough Sam

Sourdough Sam :

This is gonna be a good one. On one side of the table we have Bernie of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team. A tough blue-collar guy from a tough rustbelt city, Bernie brews beer for a living. Each time a player from the home team hits a home run, he takes a dip in a giant glass of beer. How’s that for drinking?

Sourdough Sam of the San Francisco 49ers has a different approach to alcohol consumption. He’s a gold prospector brought up in the rough-and-tumble 19th century, a time when only the toughest of men settled in the American West. And these men drank homemade whiskey. And tons of it. That will put some hair on your chest (not that Sam needs any more of it). We’d expect to see him in a smoke-filled American poker room, laying down hands when he isn’t too busy brawling.

• Odds: 5/3 in Sam’s favor

Most delicious mascot

Otto the Orange:

This is a fun one. We’ve decided to pit two tasty but very different mascots against each other: Otto the Orange of Syracuse and Artie the Fighting Artichoke. Otto is, well…an orange. It’s pretty creative that the Orange would have an orange as their mascot. Everyone loves oranges. Orange slices, orange juice, orange soda, orange chicken. Mmmm.

• Every pro and college sports team in America has a mascot

• Rather than being tough and intimidating, most of them are just ridiculous

• The Philly Phanatic is one of only three mascots to be inducted in the pro baseball Hall of Fame

But artichokes are tasty too. Especially when they are roasted and mixed with mayonnaise to make a delicious dip. Artie is a “fighting” artichoke, so you will have to fight him before you can eat him. But considering how delicious artichokes can be, we think the juice will be worth the squeeze.

• Verdict: Artie, because artichoke dip is a tasty treat that’s hard to beat

The American Revolution re-enacted: Lord Jeff vs. Pat the Patriot

Lord Jeff:

American gambling laws prohibit placing bets on gun fighting, but we’ve put together a great fantasy scenario. It’s ironic that an American university would choose a British aristocrat and army general as a mascot. It’s also ironic that it would name that mascot “Jeff.” But that’s just what Amherst College in Massachusetts did.

So we thought it would be fun to pit him against Pat the Patriot of the New England Patriots in a duel. No matchup could be more fitting. Jeff is a gentleman, trained and ready to defend his honor and that of the British Empire. Pat is less refined, but a skilled marksmen as well. And we all know how the revolution turned out in real life.

• Verdict: I’m American and have a personal bias toward Pat, but I’m going to be politically correct and call it a draw

Most fearsome animal mascot: Judge Sloan vs. Mike

Judge Sloan:

For this animal kingdom showdown we consider only real animal mascots to be eligible (sorry Rocky the Mountain Lion). So we are matching up two fearsome beasts: American black bear Judge Sloan of Baylor University and Mike the Tiger of Louisiana State University. Judge Sloan weighs in at 280 pounds, which is small for a bear. Mike is a well…a tiger.

Bears represent awe-inspiring power, but Judge Sloan is a black bear, not a grizzly. She is not as dangerous as she looks. Mike the Tiger weighs 500 pounds and can move faster than any bear.

• Verdict: Mike is a tiger. Enough said.

Weirdest mascot: The Phanatic vs. Youppi!

Youppi!:

Holding a competition for the weirdest mascot is tough because most of them are weird; that’s kind of the point. We’ll start with an uber-goofy and highly visible mascot: The Philly Phanatic. The Phanatic was designed by Jim Henson, the mind behind the muppets. He is a fuzzy green blob with a fuzzy beak. He usually arrives on the field on a four-wheeler and immediately starts wreaking havoc with the opposing team’s players.

Lining up across from him is Youppi! of the Montreal Canadians. Youppi! (which means “hurray!” in French) represented the Montreal Expos before they moved to Washington D.C. The friendly folks of Canada liked him so much that they decided to keep him around, so he learned how to ice skate and joined the Canadians. He’s a fuzzy orange dude, possibly human but no one can be sure.

• Verdict: While anything from Canada is weird, we’ve gotta go with the Phanatic on this one