Dissect DJs - The Top Mascots in Sports - Tier List!

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

As the sports calendar heats up and speeds towards October, Episode 186 dives into the world of mascots like a 360 trampoline tomahawk jam!Ryan Castle runs through all the mascots on the West Side of the US and ranks each one on the tier list scale from S-F. Which mascots will be the Top 5 of the Pacific Division?Which mascot gets the crowd the most pumped? Which mascot stunts the best? Which mascot has the best case of "The F arounds"?Maniacs of the sidelines, you're up NEXT!Listeners of this episode might also enjoy: Sports talk, NFL, College Football, CFB, NBA, MLB, playoffs, Savannah Bananas, UCLA Bruins, USC Trojans, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, San Diego Padres, Cal State Fullerton, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, LA Kings, LA Rams, LA Chargers, Stanford Tree, Phoenix Suns, San Diego Chicken, Oregon Ducks, Las Vegas Raiders, Utah Jazz, Montana Grizzlies, Wyoming Cowboys, Seattle Mariners, Arizona State Sun Devils, Washington Huskies, San Francisco Giants, Washington State Cougars, LA Dodgers, Cleveland Guardians, Cleveland Indians, Sacramento Kings, Oregon State Beavers, Portland Trailblazers, Seattle Kraken, Anaheim Angels, podcast, sports podcast, Spotify, video podcast, Sourdough Sam, Blitz, Joe and Josie Bruin, Tommy Trojan, Go the Gorilla, Bailey, Boltman, Monte, Pistol Pete, Chuck the Condor, Stanford Cardinal, Raider the Rusher, Buster the Bear, Arizona Cardinals, Big Red, Slider, Wilbur the Wildcat, Arizona University, Rampage, Lou Seal, Swinging Friar, Benny the Beaver, Dubs, Harry the Husky, Slamson the Lion, Roy Al, Butch T Cougar, Douglas Fur, Blaze the Cat Trail, Mortimer the Moose, Music Podcast, DJs, Ryan Castle, Dissect DJs, Tier List podcast, fyp, Arena.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Oh yeah, sports are back. Obviously, sports never left us. Let's be honest, the month of August sucks on the sports calendar. We got nothing but mid-season baseball, some tennis, whatever the hell the Savannah bananas are. It's a lot of nothing. But we finally reached the part of the year where we got NFL, we got college football. Playoff baseball is steam rolling into October. And it got me thinking a lot about mascots.

Yeah. You know, you watch a college football game on Saturday, an NFL game on Sunday. You go to a game live, they're all up in your grill, just working it. Getting the crowd psyched. So it got me thinking, let's do a little solo pot about it, right? I am Ryan Castle of the D-Set DJs. And we're back with another random episode. We finished up our Summer on the Beach series, and we've officially moved into autumn.

So I'm here to bring it to you. The top five mascots in all the world. Except that's actually going to cover a lot of ground, so I'll narrow it down a little bit because we are the DJs. I like to spin, mix it, throw it back, and dissect it. And sometimes we even dissect mascots. Not literally figuratively, but I'm going to get out my mental scalpel. And let's go to town.

So what I want to do here today is break it down into the tier layer system. If you're unfamiliar with the tier layers, we basically break it down onto a scale from top to bottom. The top layer being S. I don't know why S is the top tier. It would probably be an easy Google search for me to look into and get an answer for it. But here's the thing about me. I kind of enjoy not knowing this stuff sometimes. Yeah, it's more fun for me.

Whenever these tier systems showed up, everybody just agreed, S is the top tier. And I just was like, cool, S is the top. You know what? For me, it's going to stand for the shit. sizzling, salivating, I don't know, whatever you want it to be. The point is, it's the top tier. Then we move down to A, and then it gets real simple, B, C, D, D, E, all the way down to F. That's right. In the tier system, we include E. I don't know why it got kicked from the grade system in school. We don't discriminate letters here in the tier system, nor the dissect DJs. We're going to include E.

So, here's how this is going to go down. I'm going to run through the gamut of mascots we got in the sports world. and I'm going to rank them S through F. And I've created a little category system to break it down how I am going to judge these mascots. Number one, the look and get up of the mascot. How well are they crafted? What are they wearing? Do they have a funny head? Number two, does this mascot make sense?

Sometimes you see a mascot and it's just a direct image of what the team's name is. The Atlanta Hawks, they have a hawk. That makes sense. And then other times, I don't know what the hell it is or how it's connected to the team. but it's just there. Prime example, the Cleveland Guardians, they have Slider, a giant purple monster thing with a yellow nose who just dances his ass off. But I guess when your team was named Cleveland Indians for nearly a century,

sometimes maybe it's good to, you know, just throw a random purple monster out there and be like, yeah, it's slider, it works. Don't ask questions. Look at them dance. Look at them go. And on that note, if it doesn't make sense, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a bad thing. Sometimes I love the randomness. That's going to be host discretion.

It's a case-by-case basis. Number three, how solid is the name? I love a good name for my mascot. Some good alliteration. I like it when it's just a general name. Like Hank. Hank the Bulldog. That's our mascot.

I'm into it. Number four. Performance technique. Does it have skills? Can it dance? Can it do acrobatics? Does it know how to get the crowd hyped? I'll give you a quick example of how the person inside the mascot can drastically

changed the performance nature of the mascot. I went to Cal State Fullerton. Our mascot was Tuffy Titan. The Titans were actually an elephant. You only knew that when you saw the mascot, sometimes the logo. The first couple of years I was in college, Tuffy was played by some acrobatic dude. He would do backhand springs and stuff. It was impressive. And sometime about midway through my stay in college, it was clearly replaced with what looked like, probably like a small girl, and she did one move. Bring the hands to the mouth and like kind of blow kisses. That was tough. He's new thing. No more backflips. Just the double kiss. It's kind of up to you, which one you preferred. I kind of like the back handspings myself. But I know at the beginning I said, I'm going to do the top five mascots in the

world. There's a lot of mascots in the world. So I'm going to narrow it down a little bit. We're going to call this ranking the top mascots in the Pacific Division of the United States. So that's basically going to be, let's say, California to Arizona. And, and. And I'm going to leave Colorado out of this one. Why? I felt like doing that. And maybe the middle of the country could use a few more states included for whenever I get to a central division. This is the Pacific Division, and it goes on up to Montana.

That's right. Montana has mascots too, which is where we're going to start today. Montana University. Now I had to look this one up. They are known as the Montana Grizzlies. So we got Monty. Now, you're going to have to just trust my descriptions of some of these mascots. You could always Google search it.

We all got phones. You could do that. But I'll do my best. And fortunately for you, I am excellent at describing mascots. So, Monty, he is a grizzly bear, and he wears a headband that just says, Monty. Letting you all know, hey, my name is Monty. He wears a Montana football jersey, and that's about it. Yeah, you know what, let's give him a knee.

I've never seen him perform. I can't grade him based on how he performs in public. And I've already probably talked more about Monty, the Montana Grizzly than I should. So we're just going to stick him at the E. Let's move down to Wyoming. Where they got Pistol Pete is just an awesome cowboy. Exactly what you'd imagine a cowboy mascot looks like. He's got the chaps, the vest, coordinating Wyoming yellow shirt underneath. He looks like he's got some holsters, a cowboy hat, and a wild cowboy mustache. Think of every cartoon cowboy you've ever seen, and you got Pistol Pete.

It's a generic cowboy, guys. I don't know how many ways we can go about this. Pistol Pete, I'm going to give him a C. It's just a middle of a road cowboy. They also have a Shetland Pony named Cowboy Joe, which I will admit is an awesome name for a Shetland Pony. I don't feel the need to grade that one. Okay, it's a C too.

You both get C's. Utah Jazz. That's right. We're moving down to Utah. Now they have a mascot called Buster the Bear, and similar to Monty the Montana Grizzly, it's just kind of a bear in the uniform. That's it. I think he's kind of one of the athletic ones that likes to dunk.

Haymakers off the trampoline. But here's the thing about the does-it-make-sense category. Jazz, Buster the Bear? Why? I don't think it makes any sense. But then again, I don't know what you're supposed to do with the Utah Jazz mascot. What do you make it like the Jazz Man or something? Yeah, they box themselves in the corner when they did it.

not change the name of the team when they moved from New Orleans, and they kept the name Jazz, even though they're the only jazz to be found in Utah. I'm going to give him a D-grade. Sorry, Buster. There's not a lot of C here with the Utah Jazz in particular, not since the late 90s. All right, let's go down to Arizona and start with Arizona State. They got Sparky, the Sun Devil. I've seen Sparky perform. I worked at tournament at University of Phoenix Stadium back when I was in college still. Arizona State was there and I love their mascot Sparky. Why? Because he does this headwobble move. So what Sparky is, is he's a little, he's a sun devil. Got a big, bright yellow face with a sinister looking mustache and smile. But because it's a mascot, it's like fun. You know, like if you turn this mascot into like

a cartoon character, he's definitely the villain of the show. He's got like some Jafar look going on with his face, you know? And he's got devil horns. He's supposed to have a sinister look. You know, he's a sun devil, which I'm not even sure what that means. But in Arizona, Arizona, it makes sense because the sun gets hot as hell down there. And sometimes you feel like it's the devil doing work. Maybe that's what Sparky's deal is. I'm going to give Sparky a high score simply because the headwobble move. He does a little head shake. It's like his go-to thing. So I'll move him up to a B tier, which brings me to this. Here are my top five mascot moves. Number five, the mascot head shake. Sparky the Sun Devil is a master of this. When your mascot head is shaped

such a way where you can kind of wobble the front of it. It connects with the camera. It makes kids laugh. It makes me laugh. If you have the right mascot head, it's going to be your go-to. Gets the fans hyped, yo. All right. Number four, backflips. Yeah, a guy who can do backflips in a mascot costume. Automatically a G. We're going to go nuts for that. Number three, ability to get the place charged up. Now, there's not a specific moves. There's a lot of mascots that do the bring the arms up like come on make some noise a little pointing a little fist pumping there are some mascots out there that have the ability to bring the make some noise meter up to extreme let's get this bucket let's get this stop you ever see a mascot lead a defense charge even though

he himself cannot say defense i want that move in my mascot's repertoire number two willingness to stunt a mascot that can jump off a trampoline and just throw down a vicious haymaker. Works every time. Who's not going to love that? The willingness to put your body on the line. Padded as it may be, that's going to score valuable points. In the mascot rating system, I'll tell you right now.

But it goes beyond trampolines. I've seen mascots drop down, like a cliffhanger sort of deal. The Denver Nuggets mascot. Rocky, I believe his name is. He has a penchant for climbing up giant ladders. Like he's fucking Jeff Hardy. Throwing reverse shots into the hoop. The Atlanta Falcons mascot, he'll hang.

glide into the whole stadium like on a rope swing. He'll have like a GoPro on him. It looks awesome. He'll even start hanging upside down on it. Love a good mascot stunt. Until the mascot actually hurts himself and it's not funny. But let's be honest. It is still kind of a little funny, but none of us want to admit it.

In the moment, in the moment we want to make sure the mascot's all right, but it is kind of funny when a mascot fails on a stunt. I mean, he's wearing a giant animal suit. You know, it comes with a territory when you're a mascot. And the number one mascot move, just a little case of the fuck-arounds, you know? A mascot that kind of just like messes the other team a little bit, maybe gets into it with the other team's mascot, you know, like, I'll give you a prime example. Ohio State legendary mascot Brutus Buckeye.

Last year they're playing their rival Michigan, and it was snowing all over the place. And he went out of his way to like scrape a little X into the snow right over the Michigan M. And here's why it's awesome. You know there was so many Michigan fans. and attendants that were like, what is he doing? That's the M! You do not desecrate the M! And they're probably outraged like, hold me back. I'm going to go get Brutus. I'm going to fight that guy right now. I'm going to fight him. In any time, you can exploit the pointless outrage over

something as stupid as scraping an X over a letter. It's comedy gold right there. I will high five that mascot every time. Unless the mascot's doing that on my team's logo, then that high five becomes a smack in the side of the mascot head, which probably wouldn't hurt. We like to think that right a little case of the fuck arounds it's a quality thing all right where do we leave off on the list let's see we last did sparky from arizona state let's stick in arizona though and we'll go to wilbur the wildcat wildcat's one of those words that i just feel like anytime you say you got to add a little wild cat roar there it is all right wilbur not one i'm very familiar with so i'm gonna have to describe it to you he is a wild cat with an arizona jersey this is gonna be a recurring theme i feel

leg in this. I won't spend too much time when it's just sort of a generic animal with the jersey on, but I will point out Wilbur is wearing a fancy hat. Yeah, it's not like a cowboy hat. It's kind of like a Zoro hat, you know, flat brim that goes around, and it's got the Arizona's A logo on it. I'm not too familiar with Wilbur's work. I'm going to give him a D. Stick it in Arizona. Let's go to the Arizona Cardinals who got big red. He is a big red cardinal with the Cardinals jersey. A lot of that going on right now. I will, let's just stick him with a D.

D's a fail safe when it's just a generic animal and there's not too much reason I hate on it. I'm just going to give him a D. It's a boring team name. It's a boring team mascot. It's a boring team. Arizona Cardinals, boring team. Fight me.

All right, last Arizona team, we got the Phoenix Sun. They got Go the Gorilla. I don't know if Go the Gorilla is still around. I haven't seen him in years, but let me tell you something. Back in, like, the late 90s and the early 2000s, he was, like, the mascot of the year. I feel like the first one I ever saw

putting on the map of the whole, like, trampoline monster dunk move. Like, he trademarked that. But, yeah, the Sun's Gorilla was having a moment. He showed up in, like, a Master P music video, you know, make him say, uh. The No Limit soldiers saw what he was doing in Phoenix, and they were like, get him in the music video.

Yeah, have him do some of those slam dunks. We need that. He got tombstone by Kane on Monday Night Raw once, you know, back when Kane was first storming out on the scene, just like terrorizing everybody. The gorilla was not safe. But here's where he went wrong, as I recall. There's an NBA player who was kind of heavy once. I'm going to look up who he was. Let's, the fact that the gorilla fat shamed a player for being big, it's important that I get his name correctly so we can keep that shame going.

Oliver Miller, that was his name. The gorilla wore a Miller jersey and was like eating popcorn out of like fans' hands, like trying to be like, oh, you're fat. Now I'm fat too because I'm mocking you. He has a little case of the fuckarounds. It didn't go over well, and I feel like that kind of killed the guerrilla's momentum. And he might still be around. I don't know.

You just don't see him as much. He's kind of faded into the background of generic mascots. But I still appreciate what he brought to the mascot game in his day. So I'll move him up to a B tier. Gorilla the Matt. And also, but you know what? He also, his name is Go, the Gorilla. That's going to knock him down to a C, actually.

All right, let's get to California, San Diego Padres. Now this, I don't know why, but I find this mascot hilarious. They got the swinging friar. He's kind of got like the priest gear in Padre's colors. And that's it. He's got the Padres logo and he's got a big smiling face on him. I was in San Diego a couple weeks ago and, you know, they're in Padre season. So a lot of these places have like Padres signage.

One of them just had a giant inflatable swinging friar standing out front. I don't know. I found it funny. It's one of those images that just doesn't make sense unless you know. You know, unless you know, you're familiar with the team and the mascot. The swinging friar, why not? But that's kind of all he brings to the table. Just kind of being a hilarious what the hell is that kind of thing.

But that's going to be enough to get them up to a sea. Now here's the thing about the Padre's mascotary. Look it up. had a known mascot tied to their team for years. It was the San Diego Chicken. I did not know that San Diego Chicken was never their official mascot. I had to like look in this. I started going on a rabbit hole when I was looking up these mascots.

Turns out he was never actually officially with the team. Going back to the 70s, there was a radio station that created the San Diego Chicken to, I don't know, get people psyched up for the Padres. I don't know what the hell he was. Maximum case of a little bit of the fucker. because he was known for just being a little prankster who stirs up trouble, who messes with the other team, he'll, like, drive by him and, like, throw a bucket of water at him, stuff like that. Yeah, I guess he was never actually the official team's mascot.

In the 70s, things were wild. He could just affiliate away the radio station, and they're like, oh, yeah, no, he can run on the field. He can dance on the dugout checks out to us, and they just let him do it. Really, one of the first real iconic mascots, and he was just around for years. Also, another mascot who got Tombstone by Kane. WrestleMania 2000, I was there in Anaheim, got randomly attacked by the San Diego Chicken. He took the head off, and it was Pete Rose, who at this point was going three years in a row,

getting into it with Kane at WrestleMania. If you know, you know, look it up. Kane's beef with Pete Rose. Almost as long as Kane's rivalry with The Undertaker. But I digress. Should we rank the San Diego Chicken? Yeah, let's toss him in there. I'll give him a bee.

The fact that he was able to be so iconic without even really being attached to the team officially is impressive. And the fact that he was able to do it for generations, like decades. I don't know if the San Diego chicken still exists. I feel like I haven't seen it in years, which makes sense now that I know that it was never part of the team. So maybe the guy who just played it, like died. I don't know. I mean, he'd got to be pretty old by now. He was a spry athletic chicken, though.

I remember that as a chicken would be. Let's move on to LA's prime city of. Los Angeles. And let's start with the Chargers as good of a city to bridge from San Diego to L.A. because that's what the team did themselves. Boltman. This guy looks awesome. I don't know what it is about Boltman, but he makes me want to get charged up. Electricity running through his veins. He's just a geared up, big, yoked, he's just wearing the Chargers uniform, and then he's just got an electric bolt as a head. With those shades that you'll see like bros, he's just, you'll see like bros, and lifted trucks wear, which normally I'm not a fan of, but on Boltman, it just works,

especially since he doesn't need it to go behind his ears because he doesn't have ears. You know what he does have? Electric volts. Not so ironically, the Chargers logo. So basically, he's just the Chargers logo turned into a man. And just by his menacing face, I'm into it. I'm going to give him an A. I don't even know what Boltman does.

He looks like he could get in there and rush for $2.50 right now if you put him on the Just stiff arming fools. Give him some open space on the field. He's going to turn up. He'll probably catch six passes for 75. Hell, he could probably even blitz the quarterback. I don't know. I'm in on Boltman. It's just one of those mascots where every time they show him makes me laugh. I'm not even sure that it's the official mascot. I think it might just be a guy that shows up. Let me check something out. No, Boatman is not the official mascot of the Chargers? It's just a dude that shows up. That's even better. I'm mooring. That's another. That's another. Is that like a whole other podcast that I won't veer off course into right now? But Boltman's going to be included in this because the fact that I thought it was their official mascot.

Fans that have become so famous with their absurd outfit that they seem like the team's mascot. All right. So the next question is, does the Chargers have an official mascot? No. All right. Well, what are you doing, Chargers? Bring Boltman on. He's probably been going to the game for like 20, 30 years.

Hire him on the spot, I say. Boltman gets it. That's our first day. Now let's stick with L.A. Let's stick with football. The L.A. Rams. Rampage. Right off the bat. I'm going to give them points. I mean, Rampage is a great name for your RAM mascot. I mean, I could see kids being hyped. It can work as like a skill set you want the team to bring to the table.

You know, like bring some Rampage out of the field. You know, show them what you got. Rampage. Great mascot name. Sort of generic, whatever mascot. Another case of just this is an animal in the teams. uniform. It's fine. C tier for Rampage. And that brings me to this. The top five reasons for a mascot in sports. Number five, give a little something for the kids. Kids sometimes need a little help getting hyped into sports before they really fully understand the rules or know what's going on or can

really appreciate like the ins and outs of the game. They might want to like fun mascot to look at. Give them a high five. Kids are people too and they are the cornerstone of the future of our sports fandom. You want to get kids invested early, point the mascot to them. Number four, merch. You know, sell a little plushy doll, put his face on stuff, have them go out there and shoot the t-shirt gun, and the more popular mascot, the more merch you will sell. Merch, an important cornerstone to any organization.

Number three, hammer home that team identity. Take the San Diego Padres, for example. We just talked about the swinging friar. Does anybody really know what a Padre is? I still don't. I assume it has something to do with clergymen based on the swinging. Friar you got running around the field, but hey, drives home the point. It helps us understand what a Padre is. And if you got a fun mascot in your face, pumping fists, give the team some

identity by literally bringing it to life and hype the game up a little bit. All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the strawberry watermelon refresher and the mango pineapple refresher with popping boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite berry blast with berry flavors and cold foam, who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Six all new drinks are here. Now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine. Number two, get the crowd charged the F up.

We talked about how this was one of the qualities that I'm judging mascots on. I mean, sometimes they literally will put a spotlight on the mascot at the entrance. He might get lowered into the arena on a giant rope and just, be like one hand in it, pointing at the crowd, doing the Arsenio fistpumps. That's the last thing they show you before the team gets introduced. You know why? Because that mascot will get the place. Charge the F up. Number one, bring just a little case of the fuckerounds to the game. Look, sometimes sports can hit a lull. You might be in the top of the six. There's still one out. Managers come out to talk to the pitcher twice already. Let's get that mascot dancing on the

dugout a little bit, you know? Let's veer our attention to something fun. He knows. it, he can feel it. This game needs some energy. We're in the third quarter of an NBA game. The officials have been reviewing an out of bounds play for five fucking minutes. Hey, get the mascot. Start messing with the other team's coach or the equipment manager of the coach is too heavy nordeal to fuck with, you know? Doing a little something with the celebrity in the front row, you know, just avert our attention away from the boredom of the game at the moment and give us something to laugh at. A little case of the fuck rounds is so important to a what a mascot brings to the game.

Now let's get back to our tier list. And swing over to the LA Kings, Bailey. It's my favorite hockey team and got to be my favorite hockey mascot. Bailey. He's just a lion in a king's uniform. But he's got a little case of the fuckerounds. I've seen it. And he does an excellent job hyping up the team.

He sells mad merch. I'm going to tell you, like, you go to a Kings game, people love Bailey. I can't even really explain why. I don't even know why his name is Bayley. It just works. It plays for the L.A. crowd, which you know a sports crowd in L.A. can be a little bit, eh, you give me a reason to get excited. But hockey fans, they're different. L.A. Kings fans are different. They see Bailey and they're like, oh, shit, it's Bailey. Bailey, Bailey. They love Bailey. So I'm going to go ahead and put Bailey at the B tier. You know why? B for Bailey. Let's keep it going. Let's stick in L.A. and go to the L.A. Clippers. Chuck, the Condor. What the hell is going on with Chuck the Condor? What is this mascot? This is the first one that I

just feel fails in literally all areas of the mascot criteria. He doesn't have historic legacy. He literally just got introduced. His name is Chuck the Condor. No alliteration. Like Chuck? You went with Chuck? What about Cliff? Cliff the Condor? I'm just spitballing over here. Because I'm a lifelong California resident, I do know that the reason it's the condor is because that happens to be the California state bird. Very random thing to go after from a mascot standpoint. But this is sort of the essential problem with the clippers. Oh, not the essential. I mean, it's kind of literally only problems when we discuss the Clippers franchise.

But what the hell is a clipper? It's like a ship. How do you make a mascot? I guess you have to go random animal. But if you're going to go random animal, like, I don't know, do something a little bit more fun. Make it just a random goofy monster thing. I don't know. Give it a name that people will want to say.

That kids will want to relate to that. I'll be like, I want a Mooney the mascot. Stuffed animal. Nobody wants a Chuck the Condor stuffed animal anywhere near their house. Just a bird with a giant beak. The beak is blue. The head is pink. And the rest of the body is gray, except for the legs are yellow.

And he appears to be wearing Chuck Taylor's. Okay, I guess his name is Chuck. So that one checks out. I'll give him that. And a cape. and then a Clippers jersey. I just don't know what's going to. This could not be more emblematic for just what the Clippers are.

Just a mismash of what the hell is that? What are we doing? How much thought was put in this from a business perspective? Everything you're doing doesn't make sense. I feel like it's never going to work from now to the end of time. And that is the best way I can describe the entire Clippers organization. Now more than ever. So yeah, sorry Chuck, but you're going to be the first mascot that lands in the F tier.

Of course, the Clippers are not the only LA team, which is, that's the main essential problem with the Clippers. On top of being a horribly run organization, that's an embarrassment year after year that has a weird identity, weird name, weird mascot. There's just another team that everybody in L.A. loves more. And that, of course, is the Lakers. Lakers, honestly kind of too cool for our mascot. They were just like, yeah, we don't get into the mascot business. So they don't enter this list, or do they? Because everybody knows the real mascot of Lakers is the Laker Girl.

And I'm a big fan of the Laker Girls. Everybody knows this. Tell me a mascot that puts on a better halftime show than the Laker girls. I'll wait. Thank you, Dr. Jerry Buss. One of the great things he brought to the City of L.A. When he purchased the Lakers. Yeah, you know what?

Let's put them on the Mascot list. And let's put them in the A tier. Fuck it. My list! Best mascot in sports. Certainly better than Chuck the Condor. Okay. Let's go over to baseball.

Dodgers is another team. Too cool for a mascot. Too cool for cheerleaders. I guess baseball all around is too cool for cheerleaders. a recommendation. It doesn't need to be the Dodgers because the Dodgers don't need any, like, boost. But maybe like a lowly organization that just hasn't really been relevant in a long time. Maybe they shocked the system by being like, what if we were the first baseball team bringing cheerleaders to the game? Like the Minnesota Twins, the Kansas City Royals, you know, a team that

could just use a little shot in the arm. Oh, the Miami Marlins, perfect. You're Miami cheerleaders. It makes sense. It writes itself. You're welcome. Put that in the maybe pile. Put that in that this could be a good idea pile. But yeah, there is another baseball team that likes to use the name. Los Angeles, even though it's clearly not from Los Angeles. Stop using Los Angeles to try to market yourself better. Maybe just put a better team on the field. The Clippers of baseball, ladies and gentlemen, we got the Anheim Angels.

I thought the Angels had a mascot because I remember going to games when I was a kid there, and I saw they had scoop and clutch, and they were like bears with the Angels uniform. form and they're kind of boring. I mean, I remember them walking around with a little case of the fuck arounds like mascots do. It looks to me like they don't exist anymore because all the pictures I could find of them are like wearing the old Angels gear. So they may have been gone for like 20 years now. So I'll give them a D for that. But the mascots also do have a bit of an unofficial mascot, the Rally Monkey, which is really a sad state of affairs as the entire Angels organization is. The Rally Monkey gained popularity as the Angels made their last quality run. Made it all

all the way to the World Series, and I believe it was 2003. They were powered by the power of the rally monkey. A white-haired cappuccine monkey. It's like a monkey that Ace Ventura has in the second Ace Ventura movie. That thing. And let me tell you, I was there at that time. This thing sold merch. It got the team hyped.

They would put them up on the screen. They had a whole, like, intro forum. Jump around. Jump around. The monkey would just jump up and down on the screen. They wouldn't even have it in person. And I felt like the team would feed off. it and they would rally. It would be rally time. Help the Angels win the world series in 2003.

And then he just never went away. And it's just such a sad indictment of the Angels organization. Like they never knew how to capture that again. So they just have gone back to the well. I'm pretty sure if you go to an Angels game still, which I have not done in a couple years. Last time I saw it, they're still trying to milk that rally monkey well. And it's just as dry as the entire Angels organization. I'll give them out Rally Monkey a C for what it did. for them at the time helped the angels win their only World Series ever, but yeah, it's just gotten sad. Let's go ahead and hit the college. We got UCLA with Joe and Josie Bruin, a male and female Bruin mascot, the males, like, geared up in the UCLA uniform and the females wearing, like,

the cheerleading uniform. And now I've seen these two mascots in person, but let me tell you this about Josie Bruin. It seems like whoever plays the part of Josie Bruin needs to carry themselves with a little genesis sequa, since I can't find a better term. You need to bring a little bit of that to the table if you want to play the role of Josie Bruin. I'll give them a B for being the combo platter of a boy and girl. I feel like it's creative. All nobody else on this list has done that. And I remember seeing them as a kid and thinking it was fun. And of course you can't do UCLA if you don't do USC with Tommy Trojan. Tommy. The Troge. Here's what's hilarious to me about Tommy Trojan. There is a mascot version and a real life version. Now the mascot version looks

exactly what you would imagine. Think of like Hercules, the Disney movie in like the mid-90s. It's basically that. It's just big giant grin dressed as like the Trojan and the Trojan gear. I'll give him a C, but here's the hilarious thing is that they have the real guy that goes out there in his Trojan gear. And this is the one of the funniest mascots to me. Because you can just tell, first of all, I imagine the audition process for who's playing Tommy Trojan this year is fierce. And the guy who gets it, you just know, he's like, fuck yeah. I'm Tommy Trojan. And I bet you. shit, he carries himself with an air of confidence. Unlike anybody else on the campus of USC all season. Like, he's the fucking quarterback. He stabs the field and he's like, yes. The game is on

because I say. F tier for a real Tommy Trojan. Let's move on. Oh, now we're talking. San Francisco 49ers and their mascot, Sourdough Sam. What's not to love about Sourdose Sam? I don't know. He's like a minor. He's got his Niners jersey on. He's got the hat that a minor would wear. grizzled beard that one does. I love me some sourdough. I don't know why. There's something about his smile, the way he's like so happy. You know some mascots like their smile just like makes you laugh. That's sourdough Sam for me. I'm not even sure why his name is sourdough Sam. Does it make sense? Did they eat and or invent sourdough in California in the mid to late 1800s? I'm going to say yes. Based on no research other than the Niners mascot being named sourdough Sam. Put them in the A tier.

My list. Go Niners. Let's stay. in San Francisco, though, to the San Francisco baseball giants and Lou Seal. I don't know what's happening here. He's just a giant seal with cool orange shades and a giant's helmet. I guess they have seals in San Francisco off the bay over there. I've never seen them do anything of relevance, but I like the shades. I'll give him a C. C tier for Lou Seal. Also the name Lou Seal, kind of hilarious. Lou Seal's a name. I don't need to explain it to you anymore. Before we keep moving up the coast, we almost skipped Nevada, beginning with the Las Vegas. Raiders. They apparently got this mascot. I did not know this until I started researching this topic.

Name Raider Rusher. And this guy is just a giant head as a torso. Just two legs and a giant head and then two arms coming out of it. I don't know if this is an official mascot. I don't care. I fucking love this guy. A menacing smile. What's sort of a Raider helmet, but it's not even a football helmet. I guess he's got a chin strap. Maybe it's just the helmet without the face mask, which makes sense. You cannot cover that menacing face up, especially when it's his entire body. A tier for Raider Rusher. I don't care. I don't know what this mascot is. I don't really like the name. I can't imagine he's got much performative qualities, but just the visual of this guy. He would probably give kids nightmares. I feel like everything I just said should knock him down a tier. So I'm going to do it. B tier.

I don't know what to do with this one. This is one of the weirdest one. Do yourself a favor. You're listening to this right now. Just Google search Raider Rusher. You'll see what I'm talking about. If you're going to look up one mascot today, make it Raider Rush. Let's slide back into California as we move up the coast. Stanford has a giant tree as a mascot. This thing leads the league in case of the fucker-rounds, which is kind of like Stanford's whole thing. Stanford Band is known as being a big band of jokesters.

Because they're the Stanford Cardinal. Is that a tree? I don't care. There you have a tree with a giant, crazy mouth on it and two googly eyes and a top hat. And I don't think it should be overlooked that it's a Christmas. tree virtually with legs. I'll give him a B for making, being a walking tree work. And we got the Sacramento Kings. Had a mascot named Slampson, the Lion. I'm not going to lie, kind of an awesome name. He was another one, I believe, that did the dunk off the trampoline thing.

I don't know if I'm bored with it because we've already covered a few that are like this, or if it's just because the Kings are boring. And maybe they were bored with him too, because apparently he got replaced by another King's mascot who was named Roy Al. He is just a basketball head with a crown. F-tier. I've never seen this mascot before we're doing this research, possibly because the kings are always irrelevant, and so is their mascot.

I mean, Roy Al is just scraping the barrel of name puns. It's not even like a friendly-looking basketball face. It's kind of scary-looking. Yeah, F-tier, no more notes. Let's move on. Let's go up. To one of the most iconic mascots in all of college sports, the Oregon Duck.

I got to say the most omnipresent of all college mascots. Like, the Oregon Duck does an excellent job, just making sure the camera finds him all the time. You'll have other mascots where you don't even notice that they're there. They just never show him. If you watch an organ game, you see him in the pregame, walking up to the set, doing push-ups after they score a touchdown every time. Number one example of a mascot with a case of the fuck arounds.

The Oregon Duck loves screwing with the other team, messing with fans, getting himself in trouble sometimes. I'm here for it. Organ Duck, I got to give you an A. This is what a mascot should be. I don't even know why it's a duck. They got ducks in organs. I guess they're...

Man, they're named the ducks. That makes sense. I had to talk that one out for a little bit. Look, it's been a long list. Point is, Oregon Duck, kind of a legend. And he's dressed like Donald Duck in organ colors with his little hat. And we can't do Oregon without going ahead and covering Oregon State, who have Benny the Beaver.

Never seen this mascot. Kind of weird looking. Can't tell if his mascot head is supposed to be fierce or funny or both? I don't know what's going on here. Benny the Beaver, uh, F tier. The Portland Trail Blazers. They have two mascots apparently. You got Blaze the Cat Trail and Douglas Fur.

Blaze the Cat Trail is just a cat mascot in a warm-up suit. The name is doing a lot of lift in there. It's trying very hard. Blaze the Cat Trail. There's just a word too many in there. D-tier for Blaze the Cat Trail. Every time I say it, I just, I don't like it. Douglas Fur, what a name.

Is like a Sasquatch with a D-Torch with a D-Tierreeper. giant smile on his face and a little red beanie and he is sporting lumberjack flannel i'm in on douglas fur b tier you know as i'm looking at him i get it blaze the cat looks like the one that the kids would want like a little stuffed animal douglas fur kind of terrifying but also way more funny and i love that they dressed them up like a lumberjack give them both sea tiers whatever for rounding third in our list only one more state left to cover and that is the glorious state of washington we go to washington university now here's the thing about washington they got two mascots kind of Kind of. You got dubs. Dubs the husky. He's the real dog on the sideline. And let me just tell you, when you see

dubs, you're like, is there any animal that's more majestic than a husky? Like God was taking his time that day. He's like, all right, I'm going to make the most glorious dog you've ever seen. He's going to have two different color eyes, bluffiest fur you've ever seen. And he could be a hero if he wants to. He can pull a dog sled. I'm going to give him B tier. I don't want to give any real animals a tier. If we We want to crack the top of the list. You can't just, like, wield out a real animal, but huskies are majestic. And then you got Harry the Husky. That's the other end of the spectrum.

I don't know what this is supposed to be. As I'm looking it up, they have two different versions I've seen. One of them is very much not a husky. And the other one is very much not a husky. One of them is just a generic looking gray dog in a Washington jersey. And the other one looks more like a raccoon in a Washington jersey. And both kind of suck. F tier.

Just stick with dubs. you don't need Harry the Husky. Wazoo, Washington State. Cougars, and it's just another generic cougar in the uniform. But here's what I like about Wazoo's version of this is that his name is Butch T. Cougar. Not a lot of creativity on the name. They just slapped a Butch on there,

but I do like that he has a little T middle initial. That kind of shit just makes me laugh. And for that, I'll move them up to a D tier. No F tier for Butch T. Cougar. We're going to go to the fine city of Seattle. The Seattle Cracken, the new hockey. franchise on the block i don't know what the hell this thing is but i think it's a troll his name is buoy buoy like like the little cones they have out in the ocean based on looking this guy i've never seen him in action but i feel like he's

got a case of the fuck arounds just a hideous looking troll thing at least he's in their cool colors i do like this seattle cracking colors does troll make sense i don't know i'm gonna give buoy a sea whatever i need to end this tier list seattle mariners and they have the mariner moose who apparently his name is mortimer mortimer the moose on the scale of names from A to what the fuck did you just say? Yeah, I'm going to give him one. What the fuck did you just say? You went with Mortimer. With all the names that you can give with an M. You want to keep the alliteration alive. Good. Fine. I don't even think you need it. Just call him the Mariners Moose. I feel like everybody else does. Mani the Moose. Mickey the Moose. Moses the Moose.

Moses, the Moose works. Do that. Now, the Mariner Moose is actually kind of legendary. He's just one of those mascots you just see around. I remember in 95, he was taken out of the series against the Cleveland and Indians. One of the great series of all times. Really the series that I first fell in love with baseball. Awesome ALCS. And he got taken out. And then so did Slater, the Indians mascot, who I mentioned earlier. And here's the awesome thing about that one. They bring it up on the call. I literally just looked this clip up recently because I was remembering it. And the call on it is even more legendary than I remember. Because you got Bob Costas and Bob Euker calling the game. And he fell in the field in the middle of action. And there's nothing quite like esteemed broadcasters, Bob Costas and

Bob Bueger call the action while they're describing Slider, the giant purple Cleveland Indians mascot, laying in the middle of the field while play is happening. So I'm going to play the clip. Run it. Meanwhile, the umpires don't see it. Slider is on the field. By Ergo lines to left. It's going to drop for a hit. The mascot fell out of the stands, and he is hobbling toward the bullpen. No sooner had we mentioned the injury to the Mariner Moose, then Slider took a tumble, and he was literally on the warning as well as pitched to Bayergan.

He's really hurt, Bob. He's laying down out near the Indian bullpen. He fell off and right center. He was up on top of the wall out there doing his dance. And then fell. He actually took a dive. He slipped. It appeared. As we said earlier, it's been raining here.

But he fell. He fell onto the playing field. And nobody saw him. And as you said, hobbling very bad. He's hurt. These mascots are dropping like flies. And obviously, we hope he's not too badly hurt. But what if Bayerga had hit a ball

hit a ball to right center field. The mascot is on the field and you've got a couple of outfielders converging on the ball. How bizarre would that have been? You heard him mention that Mariner Moose got taken out. He ran into a wall earlier in the series. I don't know how or why. I just remember hearing that that that was enough to take him out for the series. So for that he's a legend to me. Obviously has some stunt in him. I'm going to give him B tier. And finally, our last mascot of the day, the Seahawks and Blitz. He's a giant hawk. Here's the thing. He's a Niner fan. Not a fan of the Seahawks. Actually, I kind of hate them, but I'm going to give it up for Blitz. Blitz, kind of an awesome mascot. Great name. That's top tier mascot naming for an NFL squad.

Maskout looks great. He's very active. He hang glides into the game, I believe. Every time I see him, he actually really seems like he's pumping up the fan base. The 12s, they call themselves. He gets the 12s hyped. Maybe that's why the 12s are so loud. He is a Seahawk. I assume this is what a Seahawk looks like, considering we don't actually have any real Seahawks in the world. We only have Blitz to go off of. And as much as I don't like the Seahawks, I'm going to go ahead and give them love. Shut up, Blitz. I'm giving you an A tier. Don't go bragging to your mascot friends about it. Blitz. Top tier mascot. So let's do one final look down and then determine the top five mascots of the Pacific Division. We got Blitz, Sourdose Sam, the Oregon Duck, Bailey,

and Boltman. There you go. Your mascot tier list. Who can spend over half an hour discussing mascots at the beginning of the sports season only the dissect DJs and in this case just one of the dissect DJs because there's no way there is no way DJ Jag would have taken a ride with me on this one he would have just said I don't care I don't know who that is I've never heard of that mascot over and over again so this is a Ryan isolated episode thank you for strolling down mascot lane with me we'll be back with music next time hope you enjoyed our little step outside the realm to do a little randomness with you to bring in sports season because sports are back next