Stoppage time

Cutters with image problems

For those of you who haven't seen yet, the new Cutters mascot looks like a canine forrestry major at Penn College who had a really rough night at a fraternity party. See the top link to the right. The Cutters are holding a contest to name the new fellow, though I coulda swore when I met him at a Pi Kappa Epsilon formal last fall his name was raymond and he had family in Middlesburg.

In all seriousness, I understand that the minors are all about the business of branding and rebranding, and keeping your off-field image fresh, but I think this is a major regression. I don't remember the language exactly, but when this thing first happened, I remember Cutters PR man Gabe Sinicropi saying something along the lines of that they would find a mascot to represent the heritage and tradition of this town. Instead, it seems we've got a personfication of a lot of this town's problems.

The fact that its not even the same being that is on the club logo tells you this thing can't be taken too seriously. And The fact that it reminds me of a cross between Red Grange and Cookie Monster tellls you PBS may have been in on this. But what gives with the brush in the hair, the big pot belly, the cross eyes? This town's past is a hard-working, classy one. The mascot seems to represent what many people see as its present -- one of wild, sloppy living with little regard to a putting out one's best face.

I'm sure the thing will do fine, and that focus groups have shown this will be much more engaging to the types of people the Cutters want to get into the seats. But there's a reason that when this CNBC mascot contest started, the original simple, classic, Pringles Man cutters mascot was given a 4 seed. And there's a reason that, now that the new mascot has been installed, it appears to be losing to a 13 seed ... at least when i voted a few minutes ago. (I voted for Charlston, but I would've chosen the original Roughcut).

On a side note, the third story linked is from some british mascot olympics in 2004. All the soccer teams involved are about the same level of pro soccer as the cutters are baseball. And if you scroll down, yes the fat guy in the derby hat is really the Bradford City mascot.