Tweet of Portland mascot's 'pickle' goes viral
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Portland Pickles baseball club is in hot water after the team’s mascot tweeted out a suggestive picture of what appears to be the mascot’s “pickle.”
The team’s cotton mascot, Dillon T. Pickle, had been placed in charge of taking over the team’s social media account when the “poorly cropped” selfie was posted Wednesday afternoon. As early Friday, the post had garnered national media attention and over 65k likes on Twitter.
In response to what the Portland Pickles are calling a “scandill,” the team tweeted out, “We have ended our mascot takeover. It’s come to our attention that this photo can be misinterpreted as a disturbing image. Dillon would like to go on record and say that he was trying to give his fans a thumbs up.”
The post is still viewable here.
Despite team claims that the post was innocent, fans on Twitter pointed out that Dillon had tagged accounts like Oscar Mayer, Corn Nuts and the male grooming company Manscaped in the tweet.
On Thursday, the Portland Pickles took to Twitter again to share Dillon’s video statement on the ordeal — during which the mascot suggests he was framed.
“We will continue our internal investigation and will likely release the findings tomorrow,” The team tweeted. “We assure you that we are hard at work to get to the bottom of this and it is a big dill to us.”
In a tweet Friday, the team posted, “BREAKING: Dillon has released t-shirts so he can hire a private investigator to clear his name,” along with the hashtag #ISTANDWITHDILLON. Those in support of Dillion, can now purchase his merchandise on the team’s website.
Will Dillon T. Pickle be held accountable? Was he framed? Only time will tell.
Although the well-organized responses by the Portland team have led some fans to speculate whether the scandal was staged — real or not, the sweet and sour responses have generated a lot of buzz around the Portland Pickles.