April 27, 2026
Provided Image/Lehigh Valley IronPigs
The Lehigh Valley IronPigs will become the Squonk when they take on the Rochester Red Wings at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown on June 6. The Squonk is a mythical creature said to live in the woods of northern Pennsylvania. It's known for crying endlessly about its ugly appearance.
Supposedly hidden in the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania is a mythical creature that's constantly crying, hideous to behold and capable of dissolving into a puddle of tears when cornered.
For one night next month, the state's elusive cryptid, known as the Squonk, will represent minor league baseball's Lehigh Valley IronPigs during a home game against the Rochester Red Wings at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown.
The AAA team unveiled a logo and uniforms Monday for its Squonk theme night on June 6. The logo features a porcine incarnation of the Squonk, reminiscent of something from "The Ren & Stimpy Show," peeking out from a background of the state with tears in its eyes and warts all over its pitiful face.
Like many minor league baseball teams, the IronPigs have a long history of adopting alternate identities during theme nights at the ballpark. Past promotions have included the team playing as the Corgis, the Shoofly Pie, Bacon USA and a medley of Star Wars characters.
None are as fantastical as the Squonk, whose legend was first told by Minnesota conservationist and folklorist William T. Cox. In his 1910 fantasy field guide "Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts," Cox described the Squonk and gave it the scientific name Lacrimacorpus dissolvens.
"The Squonk is of a very retiring disposition, generally traveling about at twilight and dusk," Cox wrote. "Because of its misfitting skin, which is covered with warts and moles, it's always unhappy; in fact it is said, by people who are best able to judge, to be the most morbid of beasts. Hunters who are good at tracking are able to follow a Squonk by its tear-stained trail."
Cox wrote of numerous mythical beasts encountered by lumberjacks in various parts of the country, from the North Idaho Wapaloosie to the Tennessee Whirling Whimpus. Some have interpreted Pennsylvania's Squonk as a cautionary tale about deforestation or a metaphor for depression. It's more or less Pennsylvania's flightless version of the Jersey Devil, except it has crippling anxiety and unbearable shame.
In one account from Uncharted Lancaster, Squonk hunters are advised to exploit the sorrowful creature's insecurity.
"Squonks are slowest on moonlit nights as they try to avoid seeing their ugly appearance in any illuminated bodies of water," the tale says. "Those familiar with the creature describe it as the most melancholic being in existence."
Cox wrote of one trapper, JP Wentling, who captured a Squonk by mimicking it and enticing it to jump into a sack near Mont Alto in Franklin County. When Wentling returned home and peered into the sack, he was disappointed to discover the Squonk had warped into a mess of tears and bubbles.
Many illustrators have depicted the timid Squonk over the years. The best-known rendering may be the version created by artist and animator Ashley Gerst, whose 2011 drawing of a Squonk looks like a chicken nugget grew a set of legs.
Gerst now sells a variety of Squonk merch, including a sticker of a meme that shows her drawing above the multiple choice question, "What's going on?" and the answer selected says, "I'm in this photo and I don't like it."
Pop culture references to the Squonk include the 1976 Genesis song "Squonk," from the album "A Trick of the Tail," with lyrics describing the hopeless art of catching one of the beasts. Steely Dan's "Any Major Dude Will Tell You," from 1974's "Pretzel Logic," also has the lyrics, "Have you ever seen a Squonk's tears? Well, look at mine. The people on the street have all seen better times.”
The IronPigs' theme night will add to a resurgent Squonk lore in Pennsylvania. For the past three years, the Squonkapalooza cryptid festival has been held in Johnstown with cosplayers, vendors, speakers and musical acts celebrating creatures of the Appalachian and Americana folklore. The festival returns this year on Aug. 1.
The IronPigs note that FeRROUS and FeFe, their usual pig mascots, "deny any relation to the vile creature" known as the Squonk. But no one has ever seen them in the same room together.
With the kind of start the Phillies have had this season, a daytrip to Allentown on June 6 might be the most cathartic way for fans to commiserate.
