Mr. Met already has enough to worry about when his team is in town, what with fans disgracing his wholesome image, drunkenly attacking him to the point that he's ready to snap. Now the poor guy's going to pick up the papers today and be as green as the team's commemorative St. Paddy's jerseys when he finds out that his Amazins have been canoodling with a whole throng of other mascots while on their road trip down in Pittsburgh.
It turns out that the team happens to be staying at the same hotel as Anthrocon, a festival of furries. And how did goofily grinning cat get let out of the bad? Where all big sports stories are broken these days—Twitter, of course. SNY's on-field reporter, Kevin Burkhardt, tweeted last night, "Our hotel in Pitt is overrun by people dressed up as animals. Anthrocon? And they act as animals. I have seen it all and I am freaked out." He went on to tweet about meeting Ralph Wiggam as a beaver (with Twitpic naturally) and how we was "so disturbed I can't go to sleep." Burkhardt's sense of shock is a little surprising, given that he's a Jersey Shore native.
Now before fans (and possible divorcee Mr. Met) get any ideas that the team may be down in Pittsburgh "hiking the anthropomorphic Appalachian trail," it sounds like Anthrocon is a more happy-go-lucky affair than any notions you might have from the "Furries and Plushies" special that once aired on the MTV Sex2K special. Anthrocon's website says, "If you as an adult still occasionally like to flip to the old cartoons, or have a stuffed animal sitting on the dashboard of your car, or buy cereal because it has a cool tiger on the box, you may well enjoy what our fandom has to offer."
Still, we have our suspicions about Met reliver Bobby Parnell telling a reporter, "The first thing I saw coming down the elevator this morning was a fox." Either way, this can't be making it any easier for Mr. Met's struggle to find some zzz's at this new home.
