What a great story. I hope they decide to keep the name! Via MLB.com:
ERIE, Pa. -- George Moon has to be the only person in history who scuba dove and discovered … a Minor League Baseball team.
It was 34 years ago this summer. Moon, a resident of nearby Summit Township, was exploring the depths of Lake Pleasant when he came upon a nearly three-foot-long bone.
“I thought it was a dinosaur bone,” he said. “But we ended up getting a hold of [professor] Jude Kirkpatrick from Gannon University, and he set us straight that it would have been a mastodon or a mammoth scapula.”
That’s how the Moon Mammoth was born.
And on Saturday at UPMC Park, it finally had something akin to a birthday party, hosted by Double-A Erie and its special guest, comedian John Oliver, whose wild idea to (temporarily) rebrand the SeaWolves as the Moon Mammoths came to life.
Wearing the black-and-purple Moon Mammoths jersey and hat designed by his “Last Week Tonight” staff, the HBO star threw out a ceremonial first pitch -- caught by Moon (well, actually, dropped, if we’re being honest … but at least he didn’t drop that bone back in 1991) -- prior to Erie’s 6-5 loss to the Chesapeake Baysox.
