Hyattsville, Maryland, is located near Washington, D.C. Back in the 1920s the Hyattsville public school baseball team had a possum as their lucky mascot. One day the mascot disappeared, and although the boys hunted everywhere, they couldn’t find it.
At the same time the newspapers reported that a possum had wandered onto the White House grounds. President Herbert Hoover was fond of animals and adopted it. A photo of the possum was published in the local papers.
The Hyattsville boys were not sure whether the President had their missing possum and they wanted to examine the creature. A few of the boys went to the White House and asked to see the Possum.
However, the possum was kept in the kennels and would not come out to be examined. All the boys could do was leave a note, asking for the possum to replace the one they had lost.
President Hoover, who loved kids (he later became chairman of the Boys Clubs of America), ordered the possum delivered to the Hyattsville team immediately.
The record shows that after recovering their mascot, Hyattsville’s baseball team played in the Maryland state championship series. The possum had brought them good luck!
From The Giant Book of More Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://patch.com/maryland/hyattsville/hoover-s-opossum-brings-luck-to-hyattsville-baseball-team
According to the linked article, the Hyattsville high school sports program in general attributed their success to the luck given by the opossum. The baseball team gave Hoover’s opossum (named Bill O’Possum) back to him after winning the championship. I guess the kids thought of it as a loan.
I was born in Hyattsville! Only spent my first two years of life there, so no real memories of it.