thebigbuddy

How One Cat Changed The Fortunes Of Two Baseball Teams

The Yankees are 18-3 and the Orioles have lost 19 straight since a cat interrupted play during their Aug. 2 game at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees were getting drubbed.

It was the eighth inning of a humid night in the Bronx, and the Bombers were facing yet another loss, this time in humiliating fashion — they were down 7 to 1 against the last-place Baltimore Orioles, who smacked four home runs off of recently-acquired starting pitcher Andrew Heaney.

Fans cried out to the Baseball Gods for intervention, and their prayers were heard: With Yankee slugger Aaron Judge at the plate, a tiny shape streaked across the left side of the infield, just behind the foul line.

“The one and two,” Yankees TV play-by-play man Michael Kay said as the Orioles’ pitcher delivered. “Uh oh…”

The shape moved, and the gait gave it away: It was definitely a cat.

“How in the world did he get out here?” color commentator Paul O’Neill asked.

For a moment it looked like play would continue. Then the stadium’s cameras zoomed in on the little interloper, a brownish tabby. The kitty took off toward left field and the crowd went wild.

Orioles left fielder Ryan McKenna stood and watched as the little guy streaked past him, heading for the outfield wall where a door — which remains closed during play — leads to the bullpen.

Seeing no way out, the cat paused, then jumped on the padding that lines the walls, drawing more cheers from the crowd, who encouraged him as he tried to leap the rest of the way over the fence.

By the time a quartet of Yankees security guards tried to corner kitty and he dodged them — not once, not twice but three times! — the crowd was pumped, shouting “MVP! MVP! MVP!”

Almost four minutes elapsed from the time the cat appeared on the field to the moment when a Yankees employee with some brains opened a side door, allowing kitty to escape from what was undoubtedly a stressful situation. Quite an adventure for the little guy.

The Orioles won that game and the troubled Yankees looked like they were headed for a bitterly disappointing season.

The cat changed both narratives, at least for the kind of people who put stock in sports superstition — a group that includes the players themselves.

Rally Cat, as he’s become affectionately known, on the field at Yankee Stadium. Credit: Bronx Times

Since that Aug. 2 game, the Orioles have suffered through a historically brutal stretch, losing 19 games in a row before finally earning a win last night. That epic losing streak represents the worst run of futility in Major League Baseball in 16 years and stopped just two losses shy of a 21-game losing streak set in 1900. (For British and international readers, you read that right: No other sport is as meticulous as baseball when it comes to continuity and keeping stats. Those statistics go all the way back to the first professional games in 1869. While seasons have been interrupted — most recently last year when the schedule was reduced from 162 to 60 games due to the pandemic — only World Wars I and II have scratched entire seasons from the history books.)

Fearing a curse, the Orioles’ players tried all sorts of things to change their luck, most noticeably growing mustaches. (Note to the Orioles: Playing like a major league team tends to work better than growing facial hair.)

The Yankees, meanwhile, have experienced a renaissance that has them looking like the perennial championship contenders they’re supposed to be, vaulting over five other teams in the standings and breathing down the necks of the first-place Tampa Bay Rays.

With their win over the Braves on Tuesday night, the Yankees are 18-3 since Rally Cat (as he’s now known) appeared in Yankee Stadium, and they’re riding an 11-game winning streak, their longest stretch of wins since 1985. It’s a stunning turnaround for a team that had been disappointing all year, looking lifeless for long stretches.

As for the cat, it’s not clear what happened to him. Local shelter operators and animal rescue organizations haven’t heard anything.

One thing was clear to anyone who is familiar with felines: The kitty’s body language clearly conveyed fear and confusion, and he was desperate to find a way out. Any cat would be, with 35,000 humans making a ton of noise, lights and huge advertising screens everywhere, and additional humans standing on the grass in what must look to cats like some bizarre ritual.

Yankees security didn’t do themselves any favors by the way they were trying to remove the cat, Elyise Hallenbeck, director of Strategy for Bideawee Animal Rescue’s Leadership Giving & Feral Cat Initiative, told the Bronx Times.

“They should be grateful that they weren’t able to lay hands on it, because the cat would have won that,” Hallenbeck said. “The cat was severely and terribly, terribly, frightened.”

Rally Cat, wherever you are, we hope you’re in the care of a loving human and you’re enjoying some delicious yums. You deserve it.

Cats and Stand-Up Comedy: “There’s No Purpose To Cats”

Corey Rodrigues loves cats because they’re low key and chill.

Last time we posted a stand-up clip about cats, we watched the hilarious Zoltan Kaszas put a room in stitches with his stories about his cat Jessica, her emphatic rejection of a diet, and Zoltan’s wife’s obsession with special-needs cats.

This time we’re checking in with comic Corey Rodrigues, who explains why cats are better than dogs.

After taking a quick, informal poll asking his audience whether they like cats or dogs, Rodrigues turns to a man near the front, points and asks bluntly: “Why don’t you like cats?”

“There’s no purpose,” the dudebro says, shrugging.

“There’s no purpose, right? There’s no purpose?” Rodrigues says, drawing laughs. “Like the cat’s purpose is to serve him, like ‘I’m here for you, meow!’ What do you mean, no purpose? These are the things people say when you ask them if they like cats.”

With the crazy cat lady trope and American society’s weird insistence that felines are strictly pets for women, there’s a social cost for men who love their cats — and a double standard, since guys who have dogs aren’t considered weird.

“It’s weird if you say you like a cat. If you’re at a bar and someone’s like, ‘Wanna see a picture of my cat?’ you’re like ‘You’re a freak, get away from me!'” Rodrigues says, summing up the reaction he gets. “People will show you their puppy all day, right? But you can’t show a cat at a bar. If a dude pulls out a cat picture at a bar they’re like ‘He’s a creep, get away from that weirdo with three cats on his phone! What’s this dude doing?'”

While dogs are overly earnest, cats “just have personality. You can’t bribe them with treats all the time.”

“You pull a treat out on a cat, the cat’s like ‘Yeah, right! Walk away from it! Put it on the ground and walk away from it! I’ll come back and smell it and decide if it’s safe!’ The dog’s just like ‘Give me that treat!'”

Day Five: The Nice Lady

Buddy runs from a huge pitbull while the boys journey to the home of Nice Lady, who always feeds them.

Blackie scurried up a tree with impressive speed while Clyde took off like a cat possessed.

That left Buddy, who didn’t know the area, and didn’t know the gaps in fences or under-porch hideaways that would grant him temporary safety from the mountain of a dog barreling toward him.

He ran in the same direction Clyde had gone, hoping to follow the ginger tabby to safety, but he was already out of sight.

Peggy gained on Buddy, huffing like a bellows.

Buddy weaved around a rusting bike and ran for a stand of trees and brush that could afford cover. Maybe. He could feel Peggy’s breath on his back now. His little legs pumped as fast as they could, but a shadow overtook him followed by its owner.

Peggy landed on top of Buddy with surprising nimbleness, pinning him with her huge belly. Buddy’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest. Peggy opened her massive maw. Vicious-looking canines framed a row of smaller teeth like a serrated knife. Buddy closed his eyes, bracing…

…and felt a big wet tongue leave a saliva trail from the back of his neck to his forehead.

Peggy panted as she licked him, her drool shaping his fur until he looked like someone had styled him with an entire bottle of industrial strength hair gel. She barked happily, grinning from ear to ear, then began licking his left paw.

Buddy squirmed under the big pit and meowed at her indignantly.

“Untongue me this instant!” he demanded, but Peggy just kept licking.

Blackie snickered from a branch. A pair of wrens chirped, then took off from a branch above the pantherine cat.

Peggy gave Buddy’s forehead another lick, lathering on so much saliva that he had to close his eyes as it ran down his face.

“Peggy, baby!” a human voice boomed from behind the trees in a playful tone.

The huge dog raised her head, gave Buddy a final gooey swipe of her tongue and hopped off, cheerfully skipping her way home.

Neither Clyde nor Blackie said anything, mercifully. They both looked at him in horror, recoiling at the layer of saliva that almost entirely encased him, but they didn’t laugh or make jokes at his expense. They pity me, Buddy thought.

Blackie led them around a shed, through a hole in a wooden fence just big enough to wiggle through, then into a well-kept backyard shaded by oak trees. Up ahead was a wooden porch. One side of it was built around a huge rectangular depression filled with motionless clear blue water.

“Crazy humans,” Blackie meowed, looking at the pool with distrust.

Nice Lady herself was sitting on the opposite end of the porch beneath a canvas green-and-white awning, her face buried in a book. The human woman didn’t see them approaching and only looked up when Clyde put a paw on the first step and meowed.

“Orange Boy!” Nice Lady said, placing the book on the table next to her. “And Panther!”

Buddy watched as the two hardscrabble strays transformed themselves into harmless little kitty cats. Clyde made a big show of uncertainty, then hopped up on the deck and approached Nice Lady, rubbing himself against her legs. Blackie followed, dropping down and showing his belly.

“Where have you little rascals been?” Nice Lady cooed. “I was worried about…Oh my, you have a friend!”

Buddy crouched a few feet away from the stairs leading up to the deck, watching her silently.

Nice Lady made kissy sounds, then stood up. “You three must be very hungry! Wait here, my little darlings,” she said, stepping through a sliding glass door.

“Ya see, kid?” Clyde meowed, hopping up and helping himself to Nice Lady’s chair.

Cicadas buzzed. A breeze shifted leaf shadows on the deck.

“I hope it’s eggs today,” Blackie said, “otherwise we’re gonna have to visit the red house after this.”

Clyde stretched and yawned. Buddy carefully climbed the porch steps, realizing with horror that his paws were leaving prints of nearly-gelatinous saliva on the wood. He reached the top and crouched, his tail flicking uncomfortably.

Clyde saw the look in his eyes and realized what he was about to do.

“No!” he meowed. “You’re crazy!”

Buddy didn’t care. He shook himself like a dog, sending disgusting little saliva missiles at both his friends — the least he could do as payback for abandoning him to Peggy’s tongue assault — then took off running and leaped into the pool.

He shivered, but his body quickly adapted to the temperature of the water. To his surprise, the water was a comfort, and most importantly he was no longer mummified in a thick layer of gooey pitbull spit.

Nice Lady returned after a few minutes, carrying a stack of paper plates and a steaming bowl covered with a paper towel.

“Okay, boys,” she said, placing the paper plates in a row. “Eat up!”

Blackie meowed with excitement as Nice Lady removed the paper towel and scooped heaps of scrambled eggs from the bowl.

“Careful now, they’re still hot,” she said.

Blackie and Clyde dug in immediately. Nice Lady looked around for Bud and, realizing he was actually in her pool, retrieved one of those black rectangles humans love so much and held it up.

“Cheese!” she said, confusing Buddy. “A cat who likes water! Who knew?”

She retreated a few steps to her chair and resumed her reading, sipping from a wine glass.

Buddy’s stomach rumbled. He paddled to the steps leading out of the pool, then padded cautiously to his plate.

“Oh! Oh! Of all the good eatin’!” Blackie said. “You’ve gotta try this, kid!”

Buddy lapped at the eggs. They were delicious! There was cheese and little chunks of meat that Blackie called “ham.”

The three of them ate in silence except for Blackie’s enthusiastic grunts of approval. Buddy was so grateful to get food in his tummy that he didn’t even realize Nice Lady had approached them. He froze, ready to sprint, but she just crouched down and ladled more eggs onto each plate.

“So good,” Blackie mewed. “Incredible! Fantastique! Superlatives fail me!”

All three cats cleaned their plates, then sprawled out on the deck, grooming themselves with the satisfaction of full bellies.

Nice Lady had gone inside again, and when she returned she brought bowls of water, bags that crinkled and a towel for Buddy.

“I hope you boys saved room for dessert,” she said cheerily.

Buddy licked his lips.

“Why did you slap my paw away when I went for the Temps?” Buddy asked later.

“Because,” Clyde said, “that stuff is the kitty crack.”

“But…”

“Do you have any idea what that stuff has done to our people?” Clyde said.

“Here he goes again,” Blackie meowed, shaking his head.

The trio padded across the short grass of the backyard as the light began to fade, heading for the little shed they’d passed on the way into the backyard, where Nice Lady had installed a kitty door.

“You can’t handle the truth!” Clyde trilled to his friend.

“What truth?” Buddy asked. Blackie groaned.

“The Temps were specifically engineered by humans to get us hooked,” Clyde said, taking on a conspiratorial tone. “See, the humans don’t like how we’re independent free spirits, unlike dogs. No self-respecting cat would run panting to his human the way those eager-to-please idiots do.”

Buddy considered the orange tabby’s point.

“But what does that have to do with controlling us?”

Clyde waved a paw at a house cat watching them from a neighbor’s bay window, her body language broadcasting a mix of curiosity and annoyance.

“You think kittypet over there would ever run off if it meant no more Temps?” he meowed. “They’re all cracked out on the Temps! Those spoiled, soft-living, fat, lazy kittypets are an embarrassment to the feline kingdom.”

He looked at Buddy. “Present company mostly excluded, of course.”

“Of course.”

They filed into the shed, eyes adjusting to the gloom. There was a litter box, two wide bowls of fresh water, a plastic contained filled with dry kibble and, arranged on a small area carpet, a cozy sleeping spot ringed with pillows and blankets.

“Not bad,” Buddy said, feeling like a civilized cat again for the first time in days.

“Not bad?” Blackie asked. “Kid, this is the Waldorf of Westchester! It doesn’t get any better than this.”

After some mild haggling over the best sleeping spots, the three cats settled down. Sleeping on a full stomach for the first time since he’d left home, Buddy’s eyelids grew heavy as he mentally assembled a plan to find his way home.

Pro Tip: Don’t Use Your Gun’s Laser Sight To Play With Your Cat

A woman tried to use a handgun’s laser sight as a toy for her cat, with predictably bad consequences.

A Wisconsin woman narrowly missed out on a Darwin Award and sent her friend to the hospital with a gunshot wound after she used a pistol’s laser sight to play with her cat — while drunk.

The 19-year-old woman was in her apartment in Kenosha, WI, on Tuesday afternoon with a 21-year-old male friend. The two of them downed some shots in the span of about an hour when the woman had a flash of inspiration and picked up her friend’s handgun, using it as a makeshift laser pointer.

She was waving the gun and encouraging kitty to chase it when she unintentionally fired the weapon, hitting her friend in the thigh, according to the Associated Press. She called 911 while he sought help from a next-door neighbor, who helped him tie off the wound with a tourniquet to slow the bleeding.

Cops and paramedics took the 21-year-old victim to a local hospital. So far authorities haven’t said anything about his condition, but there is one indication he may have not been seriously injured, according to Fox affiliate WITI in Milwaukee:

“[The shooter] provided a statement to police, saying she was handling the gun when it “accidentally went off” and said she apologized to [the victim], who told her ‘it was OK.'”

The cat was not hurt when the gun went off, thankfully, although it’s likely kitty bolted and dived under a bed in record time.

While the accidental shooter and her accidental victim have forgiven each other, both of them are now dealing with legal troubles.

The victim was out on bail pending another case, when he was slapped with nine counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety while armed in June 2020. That charge is a felony carrying a 12-year maximum sentence under Wisconsin state law. According to the bail agreement, he wasn’t supposed to possess or carry weapons, and police said they’re planning to charge him for the bail violation.

The woman was charged with one count of “injury by negligent handling of a dangerous weapon,” a Class I felony in Wisconsin. If she’s convicted, she could face a sentence of up to 3 1/2 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Unlike Other Animals, Cats Always Take The Free Meal

When given a choice between an easy meal and food in a puzzle feeder, cats opt for the low-effort yums.

When presented with a simple tray of food and a food puzzle that requires a little work to get at the yums inside, every animal ever tested has opted for the latter.

Except cats.

Rhesus monkeys, rats, chickens, bears, starlings, gerbils, chimpanzees and a wide range of other animals are drawn to food puzzles, perhaps because the food tastes sweeter to them if they’ve had to work for it, or maybe because it’s just something amusing to do.

“There is an entire body of research that shows that most species including birds, rodents, wolves, primates – even giraffes – prefer to work for their food,” said Mikel Delgado, a cat behaviorist and lead author of the newest study on the phenomenon known as contrafreeloading. “What’s surprising is out of all these species cats seem to be the only ones that showed no strong tendency to contrafreeload.”

Delgado, a research affiliate at UC Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine, used a clear puzzle feeder so the cats in her study could see the treats inside. A few feline study participants gave it a shot, but only after grabbing themselves some easy grub first. Other cats just ignored the food puzzle and munched exclusively from the tray.

While this is at least the second study to specifically test whether cats “freeload” their meals, the why of this particular feline behavior remains a mystery. Delgado cautioned against the obvious conclusion — that cats are just lazy — and pointed out that several cats in the study were active and expending energy, just not with the puzzle feeder.

One possible explanation: As hunters and obligate carnivores, cats simply may not enjoy games that simulate foraging the way omnivores and herbivores do.

The study was published on July 26 in the academic journal Animal Cognition. Read it here.