There was the inappropriate photograph. Then Jimmy Kimmel name-checked him. Next thing you know, he’s been kidnapped. Portland’s most notorious man about town has hardly been out of the headlines all year, which leads us to the real hot take of the summer: what’s the next move for one Dillon T. Pickle?

ICYMI, the seven-foot tall mascot of amateur baseball team the Portland Pickles became national news earlier this year, first for his not-so-kosher d**k pic (that’s the one Kimmel weighed in on) and then for a bizarre “abduction” that ended, in some echt Portland tomfoolery, at Voodoo Doughnut. 

No wonder the perma-grin outsize garnish has been capitalizing—he even curated the music lineup at his own SXSW shindig and appears in the documentary The Pickle and the Deer, which chronicles his team's inaugural trip to play the Venados of Mazatlán in Mexico. (Catch the film's public premiere May 12 at McMenamins Kennedy School: 6:45 p.m. introduction, 7 p.m. screening, $5, all ages. Dillon will be in attendance, and, in what seems close to cannibalism, fired pickles will be served.) Surely a political career is inevitable, despite a failed 2020 run for the presidency—with the city council in its own pickle, is Dillon, a true green candidate, the one to rescue us from brining in our sorry juices? 

On our personal wish list for Mr. Pickle? A collab with another of our fave Dillons, on a reboot of Friday Night Lights, pumping up a new generation of high school football hopefuls in fictional Dillon, Texas. Clear eyes, full crunch, can’t lose. 

Thankfully if all else fails—and we concede the possibility—he’s still got his main gig. Catch Dillon The (yes, that is his middle name) all summer long at Walker Stadium, with a May 31 season opener against the Nanaimo Night Owls.