Claim:
A sepia photo shared online for years authentically showed the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team’s first mascots in 1883.
Rating:
Context
The photo, which did not show signs of being AI-generated, appeared to originate from a 2010 book that featured pictures, taken between 1875 and 1955, of anonymous people dressed in Halloween costumes.
Since at least 2022, social media users have claimed that a sepia photo showing three individuals in haunting outfits authentically depicted the Philadelphia Phillies’ first mascots. Many posts alleged that the characters — “the Dancing Dutchman” and his rat “Chauncey” — made their debut for the MLB team in 1883.
For example, one February 2025 X post (archived) featuring the picture amassed more than 5 million views. Its caption read: “The Phillies first mascot, The Dancing Dutchman and his rat Chauncey.”
(X User @BBGreatMoments/Snopes Illustration)
The image also appeared alongside the rumor on Instagram (archived) and Facebook (archived) in March 2022 and August 2025, respectively.
Though the Phillies formed in 1883, their first costumed mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, didn’t appear until after the 1977 season. A Google search for “dancing dutchman and chauncey philadelphia phillies” produced no evidence from reputable sources that the alleged mascots existed, let alone made their debut in 1883. As such, we have rated the claim as false.
The Oxford English Dictionary dated the earliest use of the English word “mascot” to 1881, saying that it appeared “in a text by Henry Farnie and Robert Reece, playwright.” The National Museum of American History said it originated from an 1880 French opera, “La Mascotte,” and was initially used to denote a lucky charm.
Live animals served as sports mascots in the late 19th century, but costumed mascots did not appear until long after the Dancing Dutchman and Chauncey’s alleged 1883 debut. One of the first costumed mascots in baseball, the New York Mets’ Mr. Met, appeared in person for the first time in 1964. If the Dutchman and his rat debuted in 1883, the MLB likely would have cited them as the first costumed mascots.
The social media pages sharing the photo did not say who the third person in the picture, a small child wearing a white mask, was.
Sightengine, a website for detecting the use of artificial intelligence in images, found no signs that the photo was AI-generated. A TinEye search suggested that the image originated from musician and artist Ossian Brown‘s 2010 photobook, “Haunted Air.” CBS News credited Brown with the picture in a 2013 article titled, “Vintage Halloween.”
The book featured pictures of anonymous people dressed in Halloween costumes, taken between 1875 and 1955. It was unclear what the costumes from photo were meant to represent.
Snopes contacted Brown for clarification about the image’s authenticity and for more information about the three costumed individuals. We will update this story if we receive a response.
For further reading, Snopes previously investigated what Grimace, a giant purple McDonald’s mascot, is actually meant to be.
