PR Nightmare: The Phillie Phanatic Just Carried A Severed Head In His Mouth To Bryce Harper And Proudly Dropped It At His Feet - ClickHole

Major League Baseball is no stranger to scandal, but the unmitigated disaster currently playing out at the Philadelphia Phillies’ home stadium of Citizens Bank Park is hands down one of the biggest crises any team has faced in a long, long time: The Phillie Phanatic just carried a severed head in his mouth to Bryce Harper and proudly dropped it at his feet.

YIkes. There’s really no way to sugarcoat it: This is a massive PR nightmare.

Just moments ago, while the Phillies were in the field against the visiting Baltimore Orioles, the Phillie Phanatic jogged into the infield in the middle of play and started running toward star first baseman Bryce Harper. The Phillie Phanatic was carrying something in his mouth, and was clearly incredibly excited. He was pumping his furry green fist in the air and jumping up and down as he ran toward Harper, who looked visibly confused as the legendary mascot made a beeline for him. When the Phanatic reached Harper, he proudly placed a severed human head at Harper’s feet before hugging Harper and giving him an exaggerated kiss with his big green honker. The Phanatic then proceeded to flex his arm muscles, run joyful victory laps around the outfield, and signal to the crowd that he wanted them to get up out of their seats and cheer for him, all while Bryce Harper screamed and vomited onto first base.

It’s safe to say that the Phillies front office is going to be doing major damage control on this for the foreseeable future.

Just a few minutes after the Phillie Phanatic had presented Bryce Harper with the head, the Phillies issued a statement attempting to get out in front of the press coverage of this humiliating event as best they could. “The Phillie Phanatic is some kind of bird or an alien or a some kind of cow probably, and as a result he has the mind of a wild animal,” read the statement, which was posted on all official Phillies social media accounts. “The Phanatic ripped the head off a human man because of his species’ hunting instinct, and has presented it to Bryce Harper because he has imprinted on Bryce Harper and has a strong emotional bond with him. The Phillie Phanatic thinks Bryce Harper is his mother, and as a result he is always bringing him little gifts in the form of people and animals that he kills around Philadelphia. We are sorry, and we are putting him in his crate right now as punishment.”

In addition to this statement, Phillies owner John S. Middleton has also announced that he will personally be spritzing the Phillie Phanatic in the face with a spray bottle to help train him to understand that ripping people’s heads off is wrong.

Dang. It’s pretty obvious that the Phillies are doing everything they can to minimize public blowback to this, but it’s unclear whether anyone’s going to buy it!

An investigation by Major League Baseball has determined that the severed head came from an honest, hardworking man who loved his family. As compensation, they have sent the family a Bobby Abreu bobblehead doll valued at over $12.

Shortly after the incident, members of the Citizen Bank Park grounds crew chased down the Phillie Phanatic, shot him with several dozen tranquilizer darts, and dragged his unconscious body off the field and into the Phillies dugout. In his panic, Bryce Harper threw the severed head the Phanatic had brought him into the stands, but since the person who caught it was a Mets fan, he ended up throwing the head back on the field. There’s no question that the Phillies are going to have a tough time living this down. It’s one of the biggest scandals to rock Major League Baseball since the height of the steroid era. Here’s hoping the Phillies find a way to make amends so that we can all get back to focusing on what really matters: the beautiful game of baseball!