It’s official. The Phanatic is back. The winged abomination masquerading as him has been caught and compromised to a permanent end. Few things have represented this dark era of Phillies baseball quite as fittingly as the desecration of The Phanatic we all witnessed. This Faux-natic presided over a wasted MVP season for Bryce Harper, more blown saves than seem possible, a hated former manager putting up triple digit wins, and a global pandemic to top it off.

Folks, I’m not saying this new version of the Phanatic, I’m sorry, Faux-natic can be directly blamed for Covid, but he arrived right at the same time. In my mind correlation does equal causation.

Changing the Phanatic was a recipe for a curse. We can go down the line of all the embarrassing things that have happened to this franchise since they trotted out that ghoulish tribute to copyright infringement. The fact is, we don’t have time to review the evidence. We have to act fast if we don’t want to get one of those famous baseball curses. Just bringing back the Phanatic is likely not enough. This team never won a World Series until the Phanatic emerged from the urine soaked halls of the Vet. Turning their back on him, however briefly could spell certain doom for generations.

We need to cleanse this era from Phillies history. We need to make things right with the baseball gods and cry out for their forgiveness. The Faux-natic must be sacrificed for this forgiveness to be granted. People forget that back in 2016 the Cubs broke their curse by having Jake Arrieta adopt a goat, become best friends with it, and then forcing him to perform a ritual sacrifice during the 7th inning stretch while Jim Belushi sang “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” Arrieta was a broken shell of a pitcher afterwards, but their stupid goat curse was broken.

So what do we do with a problem like the Faux-natic?

The easy thing would be to build a wooden structure in the shape of Harry Kalas in centerfield, lock the abomination in it, and set it ablaze as a sold out crowd sings “We’ve Got High Hopes.” That could work. I’m just worried the whole Wicker-Man angle has already been overcooked. Also I’m not sure if we can get the fire department on board with letting us put down a mascot using that much flammable material. Government red tape likely means this idea is off the table.

One idea I had floating around my head was using the government to our advantage. Possibly put a hit on Mr. Met and frame up the Faux-natic. Just let the wheels of justice do their thing. Then I realized that was cheap. Also the amount of time it takes to get through the appeals process is way too long.

No. This has to be a triumph of the collective spirit of all Phillies fans. So with that in mind, here’s my plan: On Dollar Dog Night every man, woman and child will be handed a hotdog cannon. (This is expensive but John Middleton can definitely afford it.) Then the real Phanatic can lead out the blindfolded Faux-natic. On the Phanatic’s signal a volley will be fired.

After the smoked meat has cleared, our big green goofball can provide the coup de grace himself. (He has experience maiming people with a hot dog gun, I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.)

As for the squeamish members of the crowd, just like a traditional firing squad, every tenth hotdog gun will be full of blanks. You can go to bed with a clear conscience.

Alternatively, we could just pretend the new guy was the Phanatic’s cousin or something. But where’s the fun in that?