• Chicago Cubs
  • Clark, the latest victim

In an attempt to be like other baseball teams with their cuddly, family-friendly mascots—and, possibly, their winning records—the Cubs announced their latest hire on Monday: Clark the Cub. Clark is a sweet-looking little fellow. In the cartoon released by the Cubs, he sports a backward baseball cap and insouciantly leans on an upright bat. He does not, however, wear pants, which prompted Deadspin to call him “a nightmarish, perverted furry.” Monday evening a large plush version of Clark with a human inside made his debut at the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center’s Pediatric Developmental Center. It was not reported whether he frightened any small children.

  • MLB.com
  • The last successful Cubs mascot, 1908.

Anyone could be a mascot. In 1909, the Cubs attempted to claim President William Howard Taft, who was passing through town and decided to take in a game. “When it was over, somebody asked the President which side he rooted for,” reported Charles Dryden in the Examiner. “Mr. Taft’s reply was very diplomatic, if not guarded. ‘I’m from Cincinnati, and besides I’ve got a bad cold and can’t smell very well.’ It is repartee like this that lands people in the White House.” The Cubs lost to the Giants, their most bitter rivals. “He’s no mascot,” the Tribune grumbled the next day. Ring Lardner blamed the loss on “a bad attack of Taftitis.”

Still, far-off fans kept sending the Cubs new baby bears. Inevitably, a tragedy occurred, as reported by the Examiner on January 27, 1916:

Joa’s disposition could be surly. He clawed at least one player. (Thus prompting a dietary suggestion from Dryden: “They should arrange meatless days for Jonah. Everybody is doing it.”) Worst of all, the Cubs finished the 1916 season in fifth place. Despite all this, he accompanied the team to spring training in 1917, where, at least according to Dryden anyway, the team barber was instructed to shampoo him between shaves to get rid of the filth accumulated during a winter in the Lincoln Park Zoo. Even in the middle of the season, he was still doing his bit, sitting in his cage and chewing his chain.