Since retiring from MLB, Anthony Rizzo has been sharing stories about his time playing in the majors. In his latest story, the Chicago Cubs legend revealed a wild story about an in-game tradition Yu Darvish would do during his time with the team (2018-2020).

Apparently, Darvish is an avid cigarette smoker. However, in his first five years in the league, the Japanese native did not dare attempt to smoke any cigarettes during his starts. All that seemingly changed when the Cubs allowed Darvish to smoke a cigarette in between innings during his three years in Chicago. It led to the now 39-year-old right-hander going on a successful stretch on the mound.

“Darvish's first start, I was on the IL,” said Rizzo. “We're down in Cincinnati. I'm talking to Darvish, ‘Yu, what was Japan like? Did you smoke before games?' He goes, ‘Oh yeah. But here they don't let me. I want to.' I'm like, ‘Well, dude. Do it tomorrow.'

“So, we go down and [other Cubs players] and Darvish… end up smoking a cigarette before his first inning,” continued Rizzo. “He goes out and shoves… I think he threw seven scoreless. And then from that point on, it was seven or eight scoreless… It got to a point at Wrigley there was no good spot. So in one of our personnel's office, they put in a smoke thing that inhaled the smoke out, because Darvish had to go in between innings.”

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The best guess to exactly which season Anthony Rizzo is talking about is the 2020 campaign, where Yu Darvish had arguably the best season of his career. The veteran pitcher ended that year second in the NL Cy Young voting after posting a 2.01 ERA (career-best) and 0.961 WHIP with 93 strikeouts.

Now, the 13-year veteran plays for the San Diego Padres. However, Yu Darvish will miss the entire 2026 season, as he is recovering from UCL repair and flexor tendon surgery.