I recently wrote about the opossum that's taken up residence in the Oakland Athletics'' visiting team broadcast booth. The possum—nicknamed "Rally Possum"—was spotted at the stadium as far back as 2014, when it ran across the field during a game against the Minnesota Twins. Since then, the critter has made lots of fans and even has its own Twitter account: "I'm Olmedo, the @Athletics Rally Opossum. I live in the O. Co Coliseum. @ColiseumSewage feeds me walkoff pie."
Turns out, the Oakland Rally Possum isn't the first, and I'm sure it won't be the last. I found two other Rally Possums that I wanted to share with you. I also found another surprise rally animal, that you'll be introduced to, below!
Up first, and my personal favorite (because I'm from Louisiana), is LSU's Rally Possum. It appeared in Tiger Stadium on May 7, 2016, and helped LSU–who was playing Arkansas and was down 9 to 1–come back to win the game 10-9 in extra innings. The opossum was carried safely out of the stadium in a trash can. The LSU Rally Possum also has its own Twitter account, and even its own song. NOLA.com explains:
LSU baseball fan and singer/songwriter Drew Landry has posted a music video of a song he wrote and performed about the Tigers' more famous by-the-minute Rally Possum. In the finest tradition of LSU sports ballads such as The Ballad of Pete Maravich by Bob Tinney and Woody Jenkins, enjoy "Believe in the Possum."
I mean, you don't get much more Louisiana that an ode to an LSU Rally Possum. I love it!
The Cleveland Browns are host to the other famous Rally Possum. It, too has its own Twitter page. It appeared in September, 2018, in a game between the Cleveland Browns and the New York Jets. The Rally Possum lived up to its name, as WKYC explains:
In the midst of everything else that happened in the Cleveland Browns' come-from-behind win over the New York Jets to end a 19-game winless streak, like Baker Mayfield's sterling debut, the defense forcing turnovers, and on and on, we had a possum sighting at FirstEnergy Stadium.
Cleveland.com provides assurance that the opossum survived the experience:
The fate of the Browns' lucky marsupial was in question after video showed a fan capturing it by its tail in the stands at FirstEnergy Stadium and putting it in a box. But, we can now confirm, the possum, or opossum if you want to get technical, was alive when it left the stadium. "The possum was humanely released outside of the stadium," a Browns spokesperson told cleveland.com.
Finally, not to be outdone by its opossum friends, Rally Skunk also made an appearance at a Cleveland Browns game, in November 2022 when they were playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Here's some footage of Rally Skunk. SB Nation reports:
While the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers were locked in a 10-10 tie shortly after halftime, fans had something even smellier to deal with in the seats with this skunk.
And yes, in case you were wondering, Rally Skunk also has its own Twitter account, where it declares: "I live in section 140 of First Energy Stadium. I am the reason we beat Tom Brady."
Now that I know there are so many rally animals at sporting events, I'm way more inclined to tune in!
