Are The Mets Releasing Their Mascot?

Mr. Met already has enough to worry about when his team is in town, what with fans disgracing his wholesome image, drunkenly attacking him to the point that he's ready to snap. Now the poor guy's going to pick up the papers today and be as green as the team's commemorative St. Paddy's jerseys when he finds out that his Amazins have been canoodling with a whole throng of other mascots while on their road trip down in Pittsburgh.

According to multiple news sources, it turns out that the team happens to be staying at the same hotel as Anthrocon, a festival of furries. And how did goofily grinning cat get let out of the bad? Where all big sports stories are broken these days—Twitter, of course. SNY's on-field reporter, Kevin Burkhardt, tweeted last night, "Our hotel in Pitt is overrun by people dressed up as animals. Anthrocon? And they act as animals. I have seen it all and I am freaked out." He went on to tweet about meeting Ralph Wiggam as a beaver (with Twitpic naturally) and how we was "so disturbed I can't go to sleep." Burkhardt's sense of shock is a little surprising, given that he's a Jersey Shore native.

Now before fans (and possible divorcee Mr. Met) get any ideas that the team may be down in Pittsburgh taking a look at other mascots, one must consider the fact that this was a one night stopover and nothing more than just plain old furry love. Anthrocon's website says, "If you as an adult still occasionally like to flip to the old cartoons, or have a stuffed animal sitting on the dashboard of your car, or buy cereal because it has a cool tiger on the box, you may well enjoy what our fandom has to offer."

Still, we have our suspicions about Met reliever Bobby Parnell telling a reporter, "The first thing I saw coming down the elevator this morning was a fox." Either way, this can't be making it any easier for Mr. Met's struggle to find some zzz's at this new home.

For the real hilarity, thanks to SportsByBrooks, let's take a look at this transcript of a conversation between Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez during the game on SNY just a couple of hours ago:

Gary: “The strangest convention I’ve ever seen is at our hotel here in Pittsburgh. You know, we travel around the country and you see parts of our society and our culture that you never would have encountered anywhere else. There are a group of people, about 4,000 strong, convening in Pittsburgh this week, people that dress up as stuffed animals.”

Keith: “They’re cuddly bears. They like to cuddle.”

Gary: “Bears, birds, dogs, wolves.”

Keith: “What are they called? Farriors?”

Gary: “Here’s the 0-2 …”

Keith: “All I know is I got in the elevator with four of them and the odor was horrific. I had to get off. I was on the 17th floor going down and I had to jump out at the 10th floor, I almost passed out.”

Gary: “Those costumes don’t breathe very well.”

Gary: “It was something, we got to the hotel last night coming from Milwaukee last night and there’s a person in a wolf costume, and there was another in a dog costume.”

Keith: “I saw a guy with his pet beaver, and he was stroking it, petting it. “

*LONG PAUSE*

Keith: “Serious. It was like a stuffed animal and he was comforting it. Very bizarre.”

Gary: “Different world.”

The Furries reportedly left the elevator on the 10th floor as well, confusing Keith's mustache for their mascot leader's, Mr. Red.