Dumb.

Mascot history is cluttered with really dumb team representatives. The Atlanta Braves have a mascot called Homer that is basically a person in a Braves uniform with a giant baseball for a head. The Colorado Rockies have a purple dinosaur named Dinger (?) that brings back uncomfortable memories of Barney. The Cleveland Indians’ mascot is called Slider, and who knows what the hell it’s supposed to be.

One of the worst mascots ever conceived is the infamous Bernie Brewer of our hated Milwaukee rivals. The damned thing looks like it just skipped down from the Alps after consuming a hallucinogenic wiener-schnitzel. It has disgusting yellow hair, and a matching yellow handlebar mustache that looks like two furry bananas sprouting from its face. It has to be one of the ugliest mascots in baseball, and definitely one of the least imaginative.

The story behind this atrocity has to be one of the lamest ever. Here is the scintillating description from the official site:

The concept of a team mascot first emerged back in 1970 when the expansion team needed to draw more fans to the park. That year, the first “Bernie Brewer”, 69 year old Milt Mason, camped out in a trailer atop the scoreboard in late June, vowing not to come down until a crowd of at least 40,000 attended a game. On August 16, a bat day crowd of 44,387 showed up to bring their adopted hero down from his perch. The demand for Bernie Brewer grew, and by 1973 he emerged as a character who cheered on the home team from a beer-barreled chalet. He would slide down from his perch into a beer stein following each Brewers home run and victory. Bernie Brewer became a fixture at Brewers home games through the club’s powerful years when home runs came with regularity for teams known as Bambi’s Bombers and Harvey’s Wallbangers. In 1984, the Brewers rebuilt the bleachers, replacing Bernie’s Chalet with a sound tower, sending the mascot into retirement.

The Brewers brought him back in 1993, complete with some lame bastardization of the original beer-related gimmick. Instead of plunging into alcohol, Bernie Brewer would slide into a fountain of water. Way to stick to your principles, you gutless pussies! When Miller Park was erected in 2001, Bernie was actually given a large space in the outfield called Bernie’s Clubhouse. When a Brewer hits a home run, Bernie plunges down a gigantic twisting slide into a fountain, which then sprays water everywhere.How can anyone get into that??

Dumb.

I think if I was one of those rude drunks that populate Miller Park, I’d be embarrassed to have that as my mascot. While the original was slightly cooler (it involved beer), it’s still just a dumb idea made even worse by being neutered into a toothless, nonsensical ballpark oddity. I thought nothing could make me appreciate Fredbird, but this abomination does the trick!