Guest Post: The Human Condition: A Study of Two Minor League Mascots

Usually when we’re hit up via our Team NotGraphs Hot Hotline, we’re sent a link, or a video, or a whited-out picture of Joe West, along with the words, “If you have some time, have some fun!” (We did. We definitely did.) You get the idea: we’re sent something that deserves our attention. We then give it what you now know as “The NotGraphs Treatment.”

Today’s a bit different: Avid NotGraphs readers Dave Yeager and Dan Ford have gone the extra mile, and below is their NotGraphs moment in the sun. Thank you, Dave and Dan. Thank you so much. The floor is yours …

Pictured above: Wilmington Blue Rocks mascots Mr. Celery (sans torso/head) and Rocky Bluewinkle (with giant toothbrush).

Is this what life is? The waiting between moments?

Does Rocky stand there with his oversized toothbrush, facing into the light, preparing to take a tentative first step into the unknown, bearing only tools ill designed for the tasks ahead? What can one moose do against the slings and arrows of the world at large? Better to be prepared in some way, I suppose, than not at all – for if nothing else, perhaps the toothbrush gives him comfort that no matter what, he faced what lay ahead the only way he knew how.

Or perhaps it is not that Rocky stands unprepared. Nay, perhaps he stands as a vigilant sentinel against what approaches, while Mr. Celery looks on. What is Mr. Celery doing in this scenario? Resting? Perhaps when Rocky can bear no more, the duty to maintain this vigil will fall to him.

Or perhaps it is that Mr. Celery has already surrendered, as he sits passively. Not Rocky though. He will face fate head on, toothbrush in hand.

Whatever it is, it belongs in a museum.

Photo courtesy Delaware Online’s July 2010 must-read article: Mr. Celery, unmasked!