This is 99% invisible.

I'm Roman Mars.

As baseball fans probably know,

the Washington Nationals came to the U.S. by way of Canada.

They used to be the Montreal Expos. The team packed up and left

Canada in 2005 and they left behind their name, their logo, their uniforms.

And maybe, most importantly, their mascot, UPE.

That's our Canadian friend Andrew Norton.

He has a special connection to UPE.

It's actually my dad who had the special connection to Upe. He died about eight years ago and his relationship with Upe is something that I'm still trying to square.

Okay, so a little bit about my dad. He was the boring dad. He always fell asleep at the movies Pinocchio, Toy Story, Dude was out cold. Family trips were planned with efficiency and thrift as the primary objective. And at our house, we subscribe to the one newspaper that didn't have a comic

section. He was definitely not into things that could be classified as fun, but

he had this one quiet obsession. It was rotund, orange, furry, and six

and a half feet tall. Yupy. U-P-E-P-E-P-E-P-E-P-E-P-E-P-E-P-E-P- U.P. U.P.

Spelled Y. O U P P P.I and always with an exclamation mark.

It's French for yippee, you know, like yupi.

Oh, like yepi! Oh, like Yupi! Oh,

Monde, I'm, um, honestly haven't looked at Yupi in a while.

That's my sister, Jessica. We're in her basement while her kids are asleep and we're looking at photos of

UPE on my phone. That's the UPE I know. Orange, fuzzy, wearing cleats, Exo's hat,

ill-feeding X-O's shirt, and then like googly eyes but an approachable face.

UP looks like an orange-haired bearded lumberjack cross with a Sasquatch wearing a

...