{"id":162620,"date":"2026-04-10T19:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/162620\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T19:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:11:08","slug":"phillie-phanatic-defeats-gritty-to-be-crowned-pennsylvanias-top-mascot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/162620\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillie Phanatic defeats Gritty to be crowned Pennsylvania\u2019s top mascot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. <a href=\"https:\/\/billypenn.com\/newsletter-signup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the spirit of the NCAA\u2019s March Madness, Pa. Gov. Shapiro\u2019s office ran an online tournament to find Pennsylvania\u2019s best mascot.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The bracket was shared on the state office\u2019s social media accounts, starting with a \u201csweet 16\u201d of Pennsylvania sports team mascots, representing major and minor teams as well as college sports. Competitors included Temple University\u2019s Hooter the Owl, Franklin the Dog with the Sixers, Steely McBeam at the Pittsburgh Steelers and Phang the snake with the Philadelphia Union.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One glaring omission was <a href=\"https:\/\/billypenn.com\/2024\/05\/08\/philadelphia-phoenix-ultimate-frisbee-new-mascot-birdy-mcbirdface\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Birdy McBirdface, the mascot for the Philadelphia Phoenix<\/a> ultimate frisbee team.<\/p>\n<p>In most matchups, Philly-based mascots overcame the ones from other parts of the Keystone state.<\/p>\n<p>The notable Cinderella story was Coco, the mascot for the Hershey Bears American Hockey League team, who upset Pittsburgh Penguins major leaguer Iceburgh in the first round. Coco was no match for the Eagles\u2019 Swoop, though.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Hawk for Saint Joseph\u2019s University defeated Franklin to reach the final four, before losing to Flyers mascot and chaos agent Gritty. The Phillie Phanatic beat Swoop in the other final four matchup.<\/p>\n<p>In the final between the Phanatic and Gritty, the Phanatic emerged as the champion.<\/p>\n<p>The result feels like a victory for mascot blue bloods, with the nearly 50-year-old Galapagos Island native overcoming the social media savvy new blood, who\u2019s approaching its eighth birthday.<\/p>\n<p>We are equal parts excited and terrified to see how Gritty responds to this result.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"520\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP25040101137188.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-222631\"  \/>Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty makes a mess with some popcorn during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Washington Capitals, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo\/Chris Szagola)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love Philly? So do we. Let\u2019s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today. In the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31763,4064,25731,2109,28,30,29,10227,67991,8740,8401,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-162620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-eagles","10":"tag-flyers","11":"tag-mascots","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","14":"tag-pennsylvania-news","15":"tag-philadelphia-union","16":"tag-phillie-phanatic","17":"tag-phillies","18":"tag-sixers","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}