The Portland Pickles have received unexpected comments from fans after the minor league team’s mascot, Dillon, shared a photo that drew an acidic response.
The team teased on Wednesday afternoon that Dillion would take over the team’s Twitter account that day, tweeting: “MASCOT TWITTER TAKEOVER! Our mascot, Dillon, will take over our Twitter account NOW! Our next tweet will be him. Feel free to ask questions or just show your support!”
“New phone saying,” Dillon captioned a photo of his thumb in front of his Pickles jersey-clad chest.
The only problem? With Dillon’s full hand cropped just below, the upward angle of the shot framed Dillon’s skyward thumb square in the center of his knees. Some baseball fans found it too easy to draw rather, uh, Freudian conclusions about what Dillon might be implying with the image, consciously or not.
Four minutes later, the team tweeted: “We have ended our mascot takeover. It has come to our attention that this photo may be misinterpreted as a disturbing image. Dillon would like to state publicly that he was trying to give his fans a boost.”
Shortly after, the team came up with a series of tweets naturally laced with puns.
“We have identified the social media manager involved in the incident and will launch an internal investigation. An anonymous mascot @GherkinBaseball was involved,” the team wrote Thursday, verifying the name of its affiliate team, the Portland Gherkins.
“We will continue our internal investigation and will likely release findings tomorrow (1/14),” they continued. “We assure you that we are working hard to get to the bottom of this and this is a big deal for us.”
The incident even caught the attention of famed American candy bar Snickers, who commented on the team’s page, “Maybe you need a SNICKLE.”
One social media user even attempted a little vigilante administration, writing: “HR here. Dillon, please meet me in my office.”
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On Thursday, the team revealed that Dillon no longer ran the page after the incident garnered national attention and made headlines.
“UPDATE January 13: Our mascot, Dillon T. Pickle, released the following video statement regarding yesterday’s scandill. You might be SHOCKED by his response,” the team tweeted.
At the end of the video, Dillion can be seen in a photo with the text “I’ve been framed!” while the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme song plays in the background.
On Friday it was back to business as usual for the team, who shared a family tweet with photos of puppies and kittens meant to encourage fans to buy Pickles products for #NationalDressUpYourPetDay.
