It’s National Mule Day, and thus a great day to celebrate a mule who singlehandedly… was in some Major League Baseball games: Arthur, the official mule mascot of the New York Mets.
Now if you head to Citi Field in Queens today, you’ll notice that the Mets have a different and way more famous mascot: Mr. Met, the dude with the giant head shaped like a baseball.
Mr. Met debuted along with the team in 1964, but by the mid 70s he had stopped coming to Mets games at their old ballpark. Shea Stadium.
So had a lot of fans at that point; the team was not exactly lighting the National League on fire back then.
But the front office had an idea they thought might help turn things around.
As Mental Floss explained, they decided the new team mascot should be a real live mule named Arthur.
The Oakland Athletics had won three World Series in a row with their mule mascot, Charlie O, so maybe the Mets thought they might have the same luck.
They did not.
Arthur was a perfectly good mule, but he couldn’t carry the Mets to any more wins, and he didn’t boost attendance.
If anything, he was the subject of some dissension in the ranks.
At one point management apparently proposed, unsuccessfully, that when there was a pitching change, the reliever could ride the mule from the bullpen to the field.
They did run a contest to give Arthur a new name (Mettle); one fan said that with the way the Mets were playing, they should rename the mule Help.
And eventually help did arrive; in the early 80s the Mets got new owners.
They brought in some new talent and in 1986 the team won its first World Series.
By then, though, they’d retired their mule mascot; when the team decided to bring back a mascot in the 1990s, they brought back Mr. Met.
And no, he did not ride a mule into the stadium when he returned.
There are lots of Instagram accounts showcasing some of the coolest looking buildings in the world.
The account Les Facades de Paris focuses on just the fronts of Paris’s shops and homes and other buildings.
It’s kind of like a Google Street View greatest hits album.
Double Bray: When the New York Mets Replaced Mr. Met With a Live Mule (Mental Floss)
lesfacadesdeparis (Instagram via Messy Nessy)