Phanatic named top sports mascot

It was only a few years ago in 2012 when Phillies baseball went down a dark path. The team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006, but on top of that, someone at Forbes mistakenly put Mr. Met at the top of a list of sports' all-time best mascots.

The Phillie Phanatic's dethroning made a bad year even worse, as somehow a grotesuqe humanoid whose marriage is a disgraceful sham was deemed a better representative of baseball than a 300-pound monster from the Galapagos. In the video above, the Phanatic sends "98 m.p.h. of compressed meat" at the Hatfield Pig's face, eliciting such sheer ecstasy from fans and announcers that they forget momentarily they are at a Phillies game.

Thankfully, here in 2015, the Phanatic's luck seems to have finally reversed; unlike the Phillies, who finished in last place while the Mr. Met and his team are on their way to the World Series. More in the sense that the Phanatic has retaken his spot on an all-time mascots list.

The Phanatic, recently spotted scaling down the side of a skyscraper, was understandably selected as the best mascot ever by Good Morning America, given the complete lack of Phanatic-caliber rivals running and flopping and hot dog cannon-firing across the mascot universe.

Thank you, Phanatic, for a fleeting moment of Philly sports joy just before the Sixers' season begins.