Sports from the past week.

Past sports article for the week of 8/13/05

Over Priced Mascots to be Replaced
By, Grey Sports

Everyone was shocked when those laughable staples of US Sports, the mascots, started throwing their weight around. Whilst these beings may be necessary moral boosters in times of crisis, added cheer power in times of triumph, and convenient targets for any spare liquid, food or bullets when we’re all just ticked off at one team or another, no one ever thought that they would attempt to unionize and employ a bargaining strategy that has earned the respect of Donald Trump himself.
The collective power of over seventy percent of all active mascots around the United States has yielded stunning results. Already conditions are being changed for mascots everywhere to preempt a boycott.
Unfortunately, as ever, the owners do not want to bow to anyone or anything, least of all objects of near universal derision. And so they have put their collective foot down.
In all fairness to the mascots some of their demands were quite fair, no one asked for anything too outlandish, such as actual respect. Private changing rooms, a small increase in pay, a slightly larger percentage on mascot related merchandises, nothing too unexpected. Yet this has lead to an almost universal strike of mascots.
Playing their own brand of hardball owners have refused to acknowledge the strike, attempting instead to universally fire the offending mascots at first. A resulting letter campaign changed that to extended leave.
In the meantime, attempting to prove that mascots are not an essential part of the American sporting culture, owners are attempting replace the strikers with alternative mascots. With few strikebreakers available beyond the nonunion members this has left one alternative: live animals.
By and large mascots have been replaced with their animal equivalents, mostly dogs and cats due to a lack of genuine originality. In a few cases these animals have been put into costumes to further resemble their striking companions.
Some teams have attempted to be original; some are hiring animals from zoos and circus. Most teams in California and Nevada are looking to their own entertainment industries to cover their shortcomings.
A few have even gone too far, taking already exotic animals such as giraffes and kangaroos, and dressing them up further. With luck it will only take another five platypus maimings before this idea is dropped.
Time seems to be on the side of the strikers, as the standard treatment that mascots receive is no longer politically correct.
Animal rights groups everywhere are up in arms at the treatment the live animal mascots receive. According to one group they were content being quite while it was only people in animal suits being treated this way as it was outside of their mandate. However much it may be traditional to heap abuse upon mascots it is now illegal to do so if these mascots are animals.
Already the drop in ticket sales has bought owners back to the negotiation table, spouting many strong words though surly now knowing that they are facing a losing battle.