TUPPER LAKE — He wears a plaid shirt, balances a floating log and holds a baseball bat with a hook on the end — and he’s coming to town soon.

The Tupper Lake River Pigs baseball team, part of the Empire League, now has a mascot, whose design was released Friday.

“River pigs” is an old logging term for the men who balanced on floating logs and unclogged jams along the river. Raquette Pond, where the baseball field is set, was where loggers brought millions of these felled trees for processing in the early days of Tupper Lake’s history.

The river pig on this team logo is an actual swine, sporting a beard, hat and “TL” tattoo, fiercely gritting his teeth. He holds a bat, that on one end transforms into a pike used to push logs around. The cleats he grips the log underfoot with could be used on a baseball diamond, too.

The logo was designed by Andy “AJ” Smith, an illustrator who is from Tupper Lake and now lives in Massachusetts.

EPBL head Eddie Gonzalez said he himself began sketching up ideas when the River Pigs name was chosen, taking influence from photos of woodsmen and log drivers standing on logs.

River Pigs Baseball Committee member David “Haji” Maroun said merchandise bearing the logo will be for sale in the near future. Gonzalez said manufacturing is difficult currently, but he hopes to have hats, shirts, coffee mugs and beer glasses out soon.

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Season uncertainties

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Maroun, also a village trustee, said the work transforming the field will be done in time for the season. However, the world may not be ready, as Gonzalez says the coronavirus pandemic has put season plans on hold for the moment.

Gonzalez is certain of one thing: there will be a season of some sort, barring an all-out sports restriction.

“We don’t have any reason to believe that every league and every sport in the county is going to be shut down completely for the remainder of the year,” Gonzalez said.

He said he is following the lead of larger leagues. If they aren’t playing, the Empire League can’t, either.

On Friday afternoon it was reported that Major League Baseball is considering several ways to hold a baseball season this year. One of these would involve radically realigning its schedule to bring an abbreviated season to the spring training sites in Arizona and Florida, with no fans.

Gonzalez says once he gets the green light for some sort of season, things will happen fast, with training camp first, then designating teams and starting to play. He said a River Pigs coach will be chosen soon.

Also in the Empire League is the Saranac Lake Surge, which made its debut in the season 2019 season.