A Wyoming minor-league baseball team is selling beer named after its furry purple mascot, prompting a letter-writing campaign by local addiction-prevention groups.

The Casper Star-Tribune reported June 13 that the Casper Rockies platypus mascot, Hobart, is the inspiration for Hobart's Duckbill Draft. The mascot''s picture appears on the beer bottle.

The linkage between alcohol and a kid-friendly mascot has prompted a campaign by the Natrona County Prevention Coalition to get the team to stop using Hobart to sell beer, under threat of a boycott. "Hobart beer appeals to small children," said coalition chair Melissa Stahley-Cummings.

Matt Warneke, marketing manager for the Casper Rockies, said the team has been selling the beer for more than a year and questioned why the coalition is challenging the product on the eve of opening day. "We don't market this to anyone under 21," Warneke said. "It's just adds to the fun, the entertainment."

Warneke said the coalition -- which pays the team $3,000 a year to have a no-drinking, no-smoking section at the ballpark -- is "taking the mentality like a lynch mob."

The advocacy campaign is having an impact: the Natrona County Public Library has ended its relationship with the team and will no longer give away Rockies tickets to summer-reading program participants, and the head of the Natrona County School District's Safe Schools programs called for the mascot to be banned from school activities.

"Would schools invite Joe Camel to a school assembly? If the answer is 'no,' why then invite Hobart?" Wayne Beatty said.

Opponents of the beer promotion also found support from the Casper Star-Tribune's editorial board.  A June 14 editorial scolded the team in a mock letter to the mascot, noting that local kids idolize the platypus. "Society draws the line at mascots pushing beer," the board said.