also, he'll always bring snacks for everyone despite the rule.

Mcdowell's Fishing Trip Rules: 1. no blaseball talk 2. you don't have to fish but you can't complain about fishing 3. BYOS (bring your own snacks) 4. never drink the last baja blast

Mcdowell Mason portrayed The Beast in his high school's production of Beauty and the Beast. The play's producers were stunned by the range of his singing voice and his natural stage presence.

i love our squatch and feel like. he has gone through a lot of trauma with all the terrible things that have happened to the tacos it's forced him to mellow out, but it's battered him down from his cheery, bombastic, brash self, in a way that is only now being examined by the rest of his team

McD gets angry he's just the quiet grumbler type

Probably most of the team. He give me big Dad vibes.

if we're talking about ships from cute art then I must direct you all here: https://discord.com/channels/755276674915893309/773740201154707506/779861379356033024

omg McD would be really good friends with Wise - both older, captain or captain-adjacent - have seen their teams get decimated

I bet both McD and Fig are very like... anti-PDA? And if McD is team captain (and everyone above him is a giant friggin' tool so he's the de-facto leader of the entire tacos) McD and Fig are probably really quiet and restrained about their relationship to the point of it being shy and maybe even a rumor

: photographers hunting McD in the forest cuz sasquatch (I mean just come to any game lol dude is right there) : photographers hunting McD in the forest cuz they're paparazzi looking for a scoop on the rumored team romance

OOH, mcdowell thought i've had that doesn't really make sense but the logistics are less important than how well it fits him: as a side effect of the wyatt masoning and unmasoning and all that, mcdowell's voice is now Boosted. there's some quality to it that means that even if he's talking as quietly as he can and is surrounded by the clamour of a busy game, you can still hear him perfectly fine even from a distance. when he gets loud, he gets really loud. this is a great quality for a team leader, but a challenging quality for a shy, unconfident dude who does not want the spotlight. mcdowell is both.

it's not something that can be put in the wiki but mcd def has feelings for sexton

also what's more los angeles than paparazzi lol, they're probably starving because no one is boning except the most responsible members of the team. Yummy's shadows GF is in the shadows cuz Yummy's been a Tacos fan forever and she understands what being in a relationship with a player really means

McD is a bear

fishing fishing fishing fishing grew out his beard hopped in an RV with vito and fig and sexton (if any of em could fit in an RV...?? they might need a pretty big trailer...) and went on a road trip paid a few visits to former teammates

so one thing that might be worth mentioning is that prior to the whole... snackrifice, while mcdowell was still listed as the team leader, pothos and pbae are widely considered to be More Leader or co-leaders or something and i think that what made him really step up was necessity-- season 9 day x.

I'm going to repost he has an amateur photography hobby but a fairly nice camera collection he's taken from sasquatch hunters he's scared in the forest

Consider: Realizing he needed to care for Sexton because Sexton wasn't doing it himself was one of the bigger factors?

he always expected someone else to take over again, but then he started to realize that he was actually good at captaining.

actually mcmason is defo the most outdoorsy member of the team, followed closely by fig

he's gotten his photographs accepted in art shows but he never attends because he's kind of shy about it

They're anti-PDA because they're really bashful about it and get flustred when you mention it

Mcd is a Friend of Bears and is mildly annoyed that there are no blaseball benefits for his bear friendship.

I was gonna say they're kind of middling in quality but there's a couple nice ones in there

maybe mcd gave batson a camera and that's how batson got into it.

i think that up until that point, he had the team captain title for one reason or another, but would have preferred not to have it. but after s9dx... the team needed a leader, and the people who usually filled leaderly roles (pothos and pbae) were certainly not going to help, and the team needed a leader.

McDowell Mason communicates via sign language. Further enhancing his strong silent type persona (also makes him more silent in the woods). The skills makes him a natural player-coach when coaching players on the field.

He's constantly chasing yummy out of his room/locker because he does have the best snacks and would share if they asked but they never will and McMason has found yummy head first in a bag of takis more than once

maybe he doesn't like to be the tallest. so when there are tall buildings around, or trees, he's okay, but when he's surrounded by strangers who are mostly all shorter than him he can't deal

spitballing some teammate interactions bmase: mcd has humored him talking about retiring for six seasons now and is beaming about him finally pulling it together for the playoffs this year. absolutely zero overlap of hobbies, but mcd knows whatever his secret craving snack is and keeps one small amount onhand for emergencies.

fig:

(fig's shelling in particular is probably hitting him kinda hard but he's very careful not to talk about or show it much in public)

Fig being shelled is probably triggering all kinds of fears and anxieties right? S9dx started with shells and ended with players leaving, so it's probably bringing up all kinds of old traumas and separation anxieties Mcd probably visits as often as possible

and yeah i think the idea that season 9 was a turning point makes a ton of sense. before that point he's probably spending a lot of time kind of ranging between working hard and goofing off, and spending a lot of his time thinking about what various events mean to his play and what he needs to do; after that point his perspective broadens a lot.

the meditation/baja blast tank is a nice point to trace from an early on like sports semi-diva, leave-me-alone kind of thing to a later mindfulness training that he does on purpose to help deal with the needs of the team and which he shares with other tacos as needs be

okay so a few things to note just historically speaking: - is an OG taco, has been here the whole time - has made a huge uphill climb to be the player he is today. got blooddrained to 2 batting stars in season 7; crept that up to 4 before getting blooddrained twice again, before finally getting the infuse in S13 - spent a ton of time elsewhere and then scattered -- rat's the only other player on the team with a similar experience

i think his nickname is something he’s grown to appreciate more as he’s grown into his role as team captain. like at first it was just kind of a thing, but over time it’s become something that makes him feel really accepted and appreciated by the team ya know?

Teammates use cap/skipper/sasquatch/mcdowell Fans use mcmason/mcd

FLUFFY

mcdowell is as fluffy as a shark is smooth

ah! then exclusively mcbaseball calls him skipper

Mcdowell is the most in contact with taco alumni

there's a lot of "the peanut is gone, don't worry, you just have to be patient and wait for birds"

-If someone on the team is making an ass of themselves or needs space he'll just pick them up and carry them away from the situation. Yes this includes Sexton.

-Al Pastor named him captain day 1 entirely because he was the Largest

-He's surprisingly good with kids unless they start pulling his hair

Sexton:You couldn't score against bright zimmerman Mcd: Alright.. Cool. It. Sexton: no Bmase: 3 time champ bright zimmerman Sexton: aaaaaa McD picks sexton up and walks away with him

Season 14 finals definitely had the pick up bad ego sexton and remove him situation

Most of the Rats Mason wouldn't go due to boredom, Yummy would only sometimes go, McBaseball, Sexton, and Bevan are the Core Group, the "always willing to tag along" types

I’m thinking a beeg yoshi kind of Sasquatch

I see no reason why Mcdowell, Fig, and Wheerer can't be in a healthy poly relationship

mcdowell agoraphobia send tweet

my hc for the stadium, is that since games can take as long as they do and team swaps can be so sporadic and like. distance wise far away from where the player came from, theres home and away dorms. the away are more just like, guest rooms in the opposite end of the stadium, but the home dorms are connected to the 'clubhouse' part of the stadium where the team den, kitchen, etc are

A guide to the remaining taco masons

Oh on this. Its wide open space which he struggles with and not just "outside" for McD right?

some thoughts to try and put some zesty character development into the relationship arc stuff: mcdowell and sexton knew each other before blaseball, maybe, and were fairly close. maybe romantically, maybe not. after the wyatt masoning, although there didn't seem to be any reason for them to drift apart (hint: it's the wheeler > wheerer thing and the possible implications of it), they kind of drifted apart. after sexton got alternated, that definitely made their friendship a lot more awkward because they're starting from square 1 there, no matter how similar alt sexton is. became fairly close/mutual pining by the time of the snackrifice maybe?

But yesss it’s such a good point. Your best friend gets replaced with an alternate version of themselves who is uncannily similar but at the same time uncannily different to the version you knew? That’s some good tension

Do you think alt-sexton was also best friends with alt-mcdowell? and when he got alternated he tries to cling on to this one piece of familiarity who is just... weird and distant. And every so often mcdowell lets his barriers down and sexton gets this glimpse of who they used to be before they catch themselves and bam, walls up again

Yeah, I like them knowing each other before. That would also give some more to the "sexton has been around for thousands of years" thing, depending on how long they've known each other.

it's like if paul bunyan was best friends with bigfoot

Mcmason picking people up was a million years ago but here's this anyway

I think he’s friendly with basilito. They get food together sometimes. They’re both aware they don’t have a lot in common, but that’s not a reason to be unfriendly. McMason asks how basilio’s family is, and what’s going on. Maybe they share some photography talk. Simple stuff

i don't think mcd realizes how much him and basilito are friends. they're very like, lukewarm friends, but they would both suffer greatly if either one were pulled from the team or died. pack mentality, some of the last remnants of the old team mcd and basilito both take each other for granted

mcd has never been in LA and not had basilito be there. that is the only person on the team he can say that for

mcdowell cherishes the everliving hell out of rat. rat is their "if they die i will kill everyone in this room" kind of vibe. rat is mcd's golden retriever that was allowed to play blaseball

Yeah like. They very rarely hang out together but they’re always together just through being in team stuff. I’m sure basilito makes him laugh, and McMason is always good if you need a quick pick me up

Pick me up of both kinds actually.

Bmase begging McDowell to throw him out of the ballpark so often mcdowell doesn’t know if he’s joking any more

gruff-voiced mcdowell ending the silence during a hangout session to ask "anyone want some uppies"

when McDowell came back from Elsewhere, Bmase tried to joke about getting thrown out of the park. McD's lack of a reaction really hit him

also like. one other thing. birbteef has totally convinced and sold me on sexton mcdowell romance. like i think thatd be extremely cute and also a wonderful arc given the idea that they started out really rocky after sexton was alternated. they had to build up from scratch, yearning to be better friends forever until it finally all lined up and they just went for it. i think mcd/sexton/fig is also lovely because i can absolutely see fig as just. being a love and comfort for a lot of folks either way GAY SQUATCH

there is nothing more to it than that, it is an instinctive parental vibe

Batson enjoys getting yeeted by McD

part of why the trip to yellowstone is so devastating, to me. yes, sexton is doing something for himself, but mcd can't help but feel a resurgence of the same trauma as when day x happened

I feel like it's more of the feeling when Sexton was alternated. Losing someone close to you and learning to bond with someone new

XD I just think it would be weird and scary to see your best friend exchanged for someone...similar but not quite the same and it’s clearly the same person but also totally entirely different and different perspectives lead to different feelings. I don’t know that I ever said “romance” I think that was all you, but yeah man they definitely had to like. Relearn to be friends when they’re? Already friends? And I’m sure it was...weird

It's lifting hours

i feel like basilito takes mcd for granted less after mcd got swept and he had to step up and sort of take over

McD being captain bc Big is an accidentally good idea and he resents that it was right

i would guess mcd eventually settling into and caring about the captain role is 100% separate in his mind from him also thinking al pastor is a huge who can the in for

I hate to say he resent the fans for the snackrifice but also it is the fans fault half his team and friends are scattered to the league

I got done with my patreon stuff so I’m rewarding myself by drawing a fishin squatch

mcd is just that good

Just realized that even tho McD has always been our captain he hasn't always been one of our best players. I like to imagine that he was forgettable not only for being a sasquatch but also just for like being mediocre, at least forgettable to anyone not on the tacos. And now that's hes like, this big popular guy, he's struggling with the attention. And so bmase, who freaking loves attention, good or bad, has to help McD manage his anxiety while under the spotlight

Which I think ties very well into the fact that hey, now that we're a Winning team, poor McD not only has to be a captain for the team, but also manage the expectations of the public. We're not losers anymore, losing hurts more now than it used to, a win doesn't mean as much as it used to, everything they do wrong is analyzed and criticized "how could be have done better, what do we need to change about these players to make them win" and I think he hates it all, just a little bit

And so bmase, who was constantly the source of speculation, and gossip, and rumors, and kinda sneered at for not trying harder, really genuinely understands that little seed of resentment, and also knows that even if it's valid, it's going to eventually turn into a monster that will destroy McDs self confidence and trust. And so he helps the big guy out, makes sure McD still goes fishing, and also starts to help manage the load of 'public relations' And maybe basil did suddenly get good on that one game, just to show that he could, to finally flip the finger to everyone who doubted him, but maybe he also did it because he knew his captain couldn't handle another lose like that, right at the end

Statistical anomaly: for a brief couple of innings, the Tacos became the second-ever official ILB team to have just two actively-playing players on the lineup, Mcdowell Mason and Rat Mason! Because all other players were Shelled or Elsewhere at the time, these were the only batters able to play. This was resolved immediately when Bevan Wise returned from Elsewhere.

Oh hey mcd has tied the single season homer record

MCDINGER! With a solo home run off the pitching of Lou Rosehart, Mcdowell Mason has reached 54 home runs for the season, breaking the single season home run record that was previously held by Sandie Turner, Rat Mason, and Valentine Games, in just 71 days!