Hopeful the steroids mess would be its only controversy to deal with, baseball is embroiled in a new mess after fans became outraged on Opening Day when it was discovered that mascots throughout the league are now anatomically correct.

            “I take my kids out of school to go to the Phillies opener, thinking it would be a great family day,” said Doug Piccolo, of Philadelphia, father of Tyler, 5, and Becky, 8. “Then we get there and we’re subjected to the Phillie Phanatic swinging his new 12-inch penis in our faces for two and a half hours.”

            Piccolo said he took his family home in the seventh inning after the Phanatic had his daughter touch his fuzzy, hanging member. When she did, he shot out his red tongue and did a back flip onto the top of the dugout.

            “I don’t need my eight year-old daughter knowing you can get that type of reaction out of someone by touching them there,” he said. “She didn’t know what it was. She thought it was one of the wacky noodles you take to the pool. But know she won’t stop with the questions.”

            The scene in Philadelphia – where the team received hundreds of angry calls – was the worst on Opening Day, but similar outraged was found in other cities. In Pittsburgh, the Pirate Parrot showed his manhood during the Pirates loss to the Brewers, and in Baltimore, the Oriole Bird strutted about with his small bird penis out for all to see during the Orioles win over Oakland.

            “Luckily, the Oriole Bird has a small bird penis so it wasn’t very noticeable, especially from our seats in the upper deck,” said Linda Johnson, who took her 10-year daughter, Kara, to see the game at Camden Yards. “But every time they showed him on the Jumbotron I had to cover her eyes.”

            Baseball has failed to release an official comment on why the league decided to make all its teams’ mascots anatomically correct, but a source within the league’s office of promotions offered some insight.

            “Part of it is educational, I guess,” said the source. “But really, it was done to give the mascots more props to work with – one more thing to swing, to shake, to thrust, to light on fire, whatever. We always try to do anything we can to enliven fans’ game experience even a tiny bit more.”

            But with the negative reactions the early reveals have garnered, some teams are considering castrating their newly penised mascots.

             Milwaukee, which makes its home debut April 11^th, had big plans for its Bernie the Brewer mascot.

            “We had specially outfitted his penis into one of those cannons that would shoot t-shirts and hot dogs into the crowd between innings,” said Mike Timmers, the Brewers’ director of in-game promotions. “All he had to do was point it up and give it a few pumps with his hands and it would explode. But now we’re thinking of scrapping that idea and removing Bernie’s penis entirely. He’s not happy, to say the least.”