John Oliver's Moon Mammoths play Saturday. Here’s how to watch, get merch, more
The Moon Mammoths are here.
In a matchup of two of the most widely discussed alternate identities of the year, the Erie Moon Mammoths -- the Minor League team conceived and designed by the late-night comedy show "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" -- take the field against the Chesapeake Oyster Catchers in a sold-out game at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
John Oliver is slated to attend and participate in the unique Minor League hilarity of the night, which will feature a giveaway of 1,000 Moon Mammoth squish toys and a postgame fireworks show. Fans are also encouraged to wear purple -- the Moon Mammoths' color -- and try specialty concessions items such as "Mammoth Balls."
The home team roster also features four of baseball's Top 100 prospects -- Kevin McGonigle (No. 6), Max Clark (No. 12), Josue Briceño (No. 56) and Thayron Liranzo (No. 86) -- and fans who can't make it to Erie can watch the game free.
The Moon Mammoths, a Tigers affiliate normally known as the Double-A Erie SeaWolves, have been months in the making and are scheduled to play three more games after Saturday's -- on Aug. 19, Sept. 12 and Sept. 13. It all began on May 4, when John Oliver dedicated the concluding segment of his show to delivering a paean to the wonders of Minor League Baseball.
"I love all of this," Oliver said after reviewing a series of promos and alternate identities of Minor League teams from over the years. He later added, "The way the world is now, I'd argue that we all badly, badly need this."
At the segment's end, he issued a challenge to MiLB teams -- the show will do a rebrand for one team, but that team is not allowed to ask any questions and must do what the show comes up with. Out of a pool of 47 Minor League clubs that reached out to Oliver and company, Erie -- which sent in an 11-point list of reasons why the SeaWolves should be selected -- was the winner.
On the June 29 episode of Last Week Tonight, Oliver announced he would bestow the Moon Mammoths identity upon the SeaWolves for the July 19 game. The "Moon" in the name refers to George Moon, a man who was scuba diving in nearby Lake Pleasant in 1991 when he discovered a three-foot long shoulder blade of a wooly mammoth, which led to 80 percent of the mammoth's skeleton being recovered from the bottom of the lake.
Thus, the new identity is in keeping with the customs of naming Minor League teams in that it uses an oddity from local history as a starting point to create something that hits the sweet spot of absurd, eye-catching and kid-friendly -- the incorporation of both prehistoric beasts and space themes make the logo irresistible to school children and just about all fun-loving humans.
The Moon Mammoths' opponent, the Chesapeake Oyster Catchers, come with their own funny backstory -- although humor was not the initial goal. The moniker is an alternate identity for the Chesapeake Baysox, Double-A affiliate of the Orioles. The Oyster Catchers temporary rebrand was intended as a salute to a shorebird known as the American oystercatcher, but the announcement went viral when internet users saw in the logo a resemblance to an element of human anatomy.
The team turned the awkward moment into a win for everybody, using the Oyster Catchers identity to raise funds for cervical cancer education and advocacy. Oliver covered the story during his initial segment on the Minors, praising the club for its solution to an optics issue that otherwise might have gone down as an embarrassing misstep.
"[That] really feels like everyone involved fully understood the assignment," the comedian said of Chesapeake's partnership with Cervivor Inc.
On Saturday, he'll get a chance to see those Oyster Catchers in action, but he'll surely be rooting for the Moon Mammoths.