2022 Greatest Community Impact Award Winner
2022 Best In-Game Routine or Skit Award Winner
Slugger is the beloved mascot of the Portland Sea Dogs, the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, competing in the Eastern League of Minor League Baseball (MiLB). Playing their home games at Hadlock Field in Portland, Maine, the Sea Dogs have been a fixture of New England’s baseball landscape since 1994. Slugger has grown right alongside them — becoming one of the most decorated mascots in minor league baseball. He’s a two-time Mascot Hall of Fame winner, earning both the 2022 Greatest Community Impact Award (MiLB/Minor League category) and the 2022 Best In-Game Routine or Skit Award (MiLB/Minor League category). Not bad for a guy who also fights T-Rexes on his lunch break.
Striking Out Cancer in Kids
Every season, Slugger teams up with the Maine Children’s Cancer Program (MCCP) for Strike Out Cancer in Kids (SOCK) — a fundraising and awareness campaign that has raised over $5 million since its inception in 1995. Each year, a child receiving treatment through MCCP is chosen as the Slugger Kid, serving as a representative for all children battling cancer. Over the course of the season, Slugger forms a genuine bond with that child, and together they work to raise funds for the campaign.
Four kids, current and former patients, are also honored each season as Hero at Hadlock, running the bases at Hadlock Field to cheers from the crowd and high-fives from players on both teams. Slugger also makes regular visits to MCCP and the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, because the work doesn’t stop when the final out is recorded.
Go Go Slugger Ranger
On the in-game entertainment side, Slugger is equally legendary. His Go Go Slugger Ranger skit, in which a city-destroying T. Rex threatens everything until Slugger heroically answers the call, has become a fan favorite, showcasing his dancing, flips, stunts, and an almost unfair amount of humor. It’s the kind of routine that makes fans arrive early and stay late.
Hadlock Field, where Slugger calls home, opened in 1994 and has a capacity of just over 7,300 — making Slugger’s in-game heroics feel like must-see theater for every single person in the building.
