Yu Darvish wore a TC Bear shirt in a Cubs post-game press conference

If you followed the Twins in the offseason, you know it was dominated by talks of the Twins seriously trying to sign ace pitcher Yu Darvish. Darvish, like many of the free agents this past winter, waited a long-ass time to sign, and when he finally did, it was with the Cubs, not the Twins. Boo.

The Cubs are now 6-7, while the Twins are 7-4, and sitting pretty because they never seem to have to play on account of the snow. Yes, it’s still early, but as a blogger who has to make content to satisfy all you people, I’m willing to ask: does Yu Darvish regret his decision?

Probably not, but I gained a great amount of joy from this picture our TJ Gorsegner pointed out to me, apparently from some Cubs fan Facebook account:

I’m sure Darvish was probably thinking here, “Cubs are baby bears. Cartoon Bear. Good.” After all, Yu Darvish is only 31 years old and not even from this country.

The problem is that cartoon bear on his shirt the Hamm’s Bear Bear — a.k.a. TC Bear, the current Twins mascot.

I’ve written before about where TC Bear came from. When the Washington Senators first moved to Minnesota to become the Minnesota Twins in 1961, Hamm’s Beer was one of the biggest sponsors of the team. That sponsorship led to many ads featuring the bear and Minnie and Paulie, like this one from 1961 in a full newspaper spread:

Maija Varda

Or this 1968 Twins schedule booklet:

Or this coaster (?):

The Hamm’s Beer bear was wildly successful from a pure marketing standpoint, except for the fact it was a cartoon that appealed mostly to kids. Considering the product was an adult beverage, someone finally sobered up and realized this campaign was not okay. Hence, the Hamm’s Beer bear went away, but he later emerged as TC Bear, the Twins mascot.

This isn’t just an imaginary theory of mine. Twins president Dave St. Peter confirmed TC Bear is the Hamm’s Beer bear via Twitter several years ago:

So it’s cool that Darvish has decided to subtlety support his boys to the north with this choice of clothing. I mean, okay, fine — he probably had no idea, but in a way, that makes it even funnier.

Yu Darvish accidentally wore a shirt of the Twins mascot to a Cubs post-game press conference. Pass it on.