The Dodgers are one of the four major league baseball teams — along with the Yankees, Cubs (Billy Cub is not a sanctioned team mascot) and Angels (no, I don’t count the Rally Monkey) — without an official mascot. So imagine my surprise when during the bottom of the 8th inning in tonight’s NLCS Game 3 at Dodger Stadium, I noticed something strange while the TBS camera was panning over to the smoldering eyes of Cardinals manager Mike Matheny. Yes, in the upper right corner of my TV screen, there appeared to be a man in a bear costume atop the Cardinals dugout, waving a rally towel and getting the Chavez Ravine crowd fired up. This made no sense since the Dodgers don’t have a mascot. Was this a special postseason guest? Or a crazy fan? Or something or someone in between?
No doubt Twitter would have an answer to this Rally Bear mystery. To the Twitter machine! I posted the following:
Was that a large costumed furry creature of some kind running on top of the Dodgers dugout? @Dodgers don't have a mascot.
— Amanda Rykoff (@amandarykoff) October 15, 2013
Within one minute, I saw the following tweet from Sports On Earth’s Howard Megdal, covering the game at Dodger Stadium:
Man in a bear suit and dodger jersey just jumped on the dugout, led cheers.
— Howard Megdal (@howardmegdal) October 15, 2013
I then posted a screenshot of the fan dressed as a bear:
Screenshot of the illegal Dodgers Rally Bear on Dodgers dugout pic.twitter.com/lKRAaqDwJx
— Amanda Rykoff (@amandarykoff) October 15, 2013
And scene:
Security at Dodger Stadium is escorting out a bear in a Dodger jersey. So there you go.
— Tim Brown (@TBrownYahoo) October 15, 2013
Puig flips his bat, runs wild on the bases, Ryu dominates, the Dodgers score three runs, a fan dressed as a bear jumped on the visitors’ dugout and gets ejected. Just another night of postseason baseball in Los Angeles.
Oh, by the way, the Cardinals lead the NLCS two games to one. Game 4 is Tuesday night from Dodger Stadium (8:07 pm ET/TBS).
UPDATED: We’ve got video and photos of the bear on the scene at Dodger Stadium!
The first one shows the bear in his full dancing glory on top of the Cardinals dugout, courtesy of @ThkBleu on Twitter and Instagram:
The second one shows the bear after he’s finished dancing being taken off the dugout by Dodger Stadium security, courtesy of Seth Amitin:
In the eighth inning, a dude in a bear suit jumped up on the roof of the cards dugout and started dancing pic.twitter.com/NNzjmCR4uc
— Shaky Cam Apologia (@SethAmity) October 15, 2013
The next one is my favorite, a close-up of the dejected bear being escorted up the aisle by Dodger Stadium security, courtesy of Emily Amitin (posted by @SethAmity). You can even see a bemused Chris Carpenter watching as it all unfolds.
Here's another pic.twitter.com/c0r28a0UyL
— Shaky Cam Apologia (@SethAmity) October 15, 2013
The last one is a photo collage of the entire rally bear episode, courtesy of @ThkBleu:
The Rally Bear Scandal of 2013. Will we ever know the true Hollywood story revealed? Who was behind the mask? pic.twitter.com/jozySJqsgy
— THK BLEU (@ThkBleu) October 15, 2013
Finally, here’s video of the entire episode from @DJSkee via Instagram:
