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Conspiracy? Blog says Brewers replaced 'Hank'

Posted at 11:00 AM, Mar 02, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-02 13:11:46-05

The story of Hank, the stray dog who made his merry way to the Milwaukee Brewers' Phoenix-based Spring Training facility in 2014, was one that made all baseball fans smile.

Since that day, Hank has become a member of the Brewers family and a fixture at Milwaukee home games. He even found a permanent home with the Brewers' vice president.

But two years later, a conspiracy theory intends to derail the story of Hank, who has become an unofficial Brewers mascot.

Brew Crew Ball, a Brewers blog for SB Nation, contends that, somewhere along the line, the original Hank was replaced with a different dog.

Its proof? Simple visual evidence.

"Do not lie to me and try to tell me that the dog on the left and the dog on the right are the same dog," Brew Crew Ball's Travis Sarandos wrote Monday.

"The coloring in the face and the ears is all wrong, the face isn't shaped the same way, and his ears don't lay in the same spot. They didn't just dunk him in a bucket of bleach and poof him up a bit. These are different dogs, folks."

The theory has gained so much traction that MLB.com addressed the situation, contending the original Hank is still very much alive.

"The Brewers are well aware of the Hank theories, and they have never denied that Hank-with-a-home looks a little different from when he was a stray back in 2014," Gemma Kaneko wrote.

"But a lot of things in Hank's life have changed since the day he first wandered into the Brewers' Spring Training facility. He's had a bath, he's had a few good square meals… it makes sense that he'd look a little different."

What do you think? Is the 2016 version of Hank the same as the one who hails from Arizona? And if Hank was replaced (for whatever reason), does it take away from the feel-good story of the stray pup who introduced himself to Major League Baseball two years ago?