Philly Origins: Phanatic

There was a great article in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago detailing the origins of 8 sports mascots, including Philadelphia's own Phanatic. I found this bit especially interesting:

The Phanatic has since become one of baseball's most popular mascots, but since this is a Philly sports story it can't have a totally happy ending. Former team vice president and current part owner Bill Giles wrote in his autobiography that he made a key blunder when commissioning the design. Given the option of buying the Phanatic costume alone for $3900 or the costume and its copyright for $5200, Giles didn't shell out the extra $1300. This decision turned out to be an expensive mistake: five years later Giles and a group of investors bought the team and eventually purchased the copyright from Harrison/Erickson for $250,000.

Check out the article online HERE.