Q, the best/worst mascot in MLS

Q The terrifying face of San Jose Earthquakes is this pill-popping, Becks-baiting, age-defying blue mutant. God bless America...

This is MLS, so San Jose Earthquakes’ matchday mascot boasts a deeper backstory than most Marvel superheroes. Q, you see, was a 26-year-old man who fell into a radioactive fissure in the Earth’s crust during the famous 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. But he wasn’t one of the poor 3,000 souls who perished (his biography glosses over this bit), because instead he emerged as a furry immortal, blue of hue and silver of hair, before being taken in by a San Jose family who looked kindly on this abomination to man and God.

Since then – or since 2004, anyway, when he replaced Earthquakes mascot Rikter the Cyberdog – Q has been a busy boy/man/thing. He was in a shoving match with players from Mexico’s Club America after intercepting a pitch invader, and also made the normally unruffled David Beckham go berserk. During a 2012 fracas, the 37-year-old took offence to Q holding up a sign that read simply, ‘Sportscenter is up next on ESPN’. Becks should have been used to American spelling by then...

Why so angry, Q? Well, on April Fool’s Day 2010, the Earthquakes released a statement – as well as a video starring several of his “betrayed” team-mates – which announced that Q had been released by the club after testing positive for “low-grade beaver tranquiliser” and three forms of anabolic steroid. Arf.

Q is a lot calmer these days. Sometimes, in fact, he even wears glasses to games. Well, he is 139.