To mark the Oakland Oaks 1916 home opener, J. Cal Ewing, generally known as “The Godfather of the Pacific Coast League” presented Oakland Manager Harold “Rowdy” Elliott with a gift: The Oakland Tribune said:
“Ewing gave to the Oaks a mascot in the shape of a real ‘rooter,’ a yearling pig, which was kept on the players’ bench throughout the game.”
The Oaks cruised to a 10-2 victory over the Portland Beavers in front 15,000 enthusiastic Oakland fans, and the superstitious among the ball club and their fans attributed the win to “Margaret,” the new mascot.
The Oaks played well in April, and were in first place until the end of the month, but by mid May they were 16-21, fifth place in the six-team league—and it was noticed that no one had seen “Margaret” for some time.
Rowdy Elliott with Margaret
The Tribune was convinced the disappearance of the pig was responsible for the team’s decline:
“Suffering Pigs! A Pork Jinx on the club!…The wrathful shade of a female porker is responsible for the Oaks’ slump. Maggie the Pig was compelled to shuffle all her porcine coil to the accompaniment of roast apples and cranberry sauce, which is no nice way to treat an emblem of Good Fortune.”
The paper also noted that the club’s secretary also worked as a cook, and Ewing should have “had sense enough” to take that into account before presenting the team with a pig.
And, the paper composed a poem:
O Maggie, dear, and did ye hear
The news that’s goin’ round?
The Oaks are losing day by day
And soon they won’t be found.
They’ve ingestion badly.
And they’re looking for the hook
They can’t play ball at all, at all
Since you went to the cook.
It became a bit of a scandal.
The Oaks quickly denied that the pig had been eaten:
“They say the trouble is that they haven’t eaten her pigship. Margaret was given to the ground keeper to preserve, and that personage refuses to produce the pig.”
Rowdy Elliott was quick to tell The Tribune the reason for the club’s slump had nothing to do with the team mascot. He said the blame was clearly the result of another team’s mascot:
“Elliott says the Oaks’ slump can be attributed to no less a personage than Erasmus Pinckney Johnson.”
Johnson was the mascot for Frank Chance’s Los Angeles Angels—The Los Angeles Times said the young African American boy had been found, on Chance’s orders, in late April in order to break a week-long losing streak. The Times routinely described “the good luck charm” in the most racist terms.
Part of the “luck” Johnson brought was derived from rubbing the young mascot’s head. Elliott claimed during the Oaks’ last series in Los Angeles he had rubbed the Johnson’s head “the wrong way.”
“Since that moment Rowdy has had little luck, winning only two games out of the last fourteen played. Erasmus hasn’t been doing much for the Angles of late, for Chance’s crew has been in a slump, but he has at least succeeded in wrecking the Oakland club.”
Frank Chance
So desperate were the Oakland fans for answers that The Tribune enlisted two prominent fans, an Alameda County Circuit Court judge and a local doctor to do a “psychological study of the team.”
“Judge Wells…has come to the conclusion that the team has worked itself into a jinx, and needs the aid of the pig mascot they had in the opening game to pull them through. Dr. Halsey agrees that hits, pitching fielding and psychology and all may have something to do with it, but the real reason, according to the doctor, is that the boys are suffering from a nervous breakdown that followed shortly after seeing such an enormous crowd at the opening game.”
Things quickly got worse for the Oaks. Elliott was suspended for several days for throwing a ball at umpire Jack Doyle, and the team continued to lose in June, and then for the rest of the season.
At the end of July Elliott was sold to the Chicago Cubs, George “Del” Howard, who had purchased the club during the season, replaced him as the Oaks’ manager.
Oakland finished 1916 in last place with a 73-136 record. Chance’s Angels overcame their May slump and easily won the championship with a 119-79 record.
Margaret the pig was never heard from again.
Baseball History Daily 
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