Sports

London Rippers Logo: Obviously Jack the Ripper

by NowPublic Staff | November 17, 2011 at 11:22 am

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London Rippers Mascot: Not Jack the Ripper? Really?

The women of London, Ontario are not amused that the city's new baseball team is named after a notorious rapist and murderer.

Let's leave aside for a moment that London is using a mascot from a different country's London (just like the city's previous baseball team, the London Werewolves) and just focus on the mascot itself.

The London Rippers are actually claiming that their logo isn't based on Jack the Ripper. It's supposedly based on... someone else... called Jack... who ripped baseballs. They're seriously saying this.

Never mind the posters advertising the London Rippers as "lurking in Labatt Park this spring".

The London Rippers' GM insists that the team's sinister, top-hat-wearing mascot is not supposed to be Jack the Ripper, even though he looks exactly like most popular depictions of Jack the Ripper.

But the character adopted by the Frontier League's new London team is a frustrated hockey player who found he could "rip" the cover off baseballs, insisted David Martin, president and general manager of the London Rippers.

Oh, come on. It's Jack the Ripper, and we all know it. Meanwhile, the London Abused Women's Centre has vowed to organize protests in front of Labatt Park, where the Rippers will play their inaugural season.