Baseball cats

Back in August 2017, a kitten ran onto the field at Busch Stadium during a game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals. The cat ran onto the field right before Yadier Molina hit a grand slam, and a poor member of the grounds crew ran out to get the cat. You can watch him get clawed here. The Cardinals nicknamed the cat Rally Cat, and were interested in adopting him/her as a clubhouse pet. They lost the custody war with a local humane society, Feral Cat Outreach, who felt the team was more interested in publicity than the welfare of the animal. I don't know if the Cardinals had the cat's best interest at heart, but I do know were I a resident of the greater St. Louis area, I would go to a heck of a lot more baseball games if I knew the team has a clubhouse cat. It's the sort of thing cat people like. I mean, Rally Cat did his own bobblehead, so it can't be all that bad.

In addition to running his way into the hearts of baseball fans, Rally Cat's appearance at the game led to the creation of Rally Cat Appreciation Day and many other baseball stadiums have followed suit, holding their own themed nights for cat lovers. I attended my first "Caturday" event at Nationals Park yesterday. While I have some feedback for the event planners, overall, I enjoyed my first Caturday. As a cat mom, I often feel left out of public celebrations for my pet, so I appreciate an opportunity to come to a game, hang out with some cat/baseball fans, and enjoy cats puns alongside of a baseball game. It makes me feel validated as a pet owner. It has also led me to discover a community of cat lovers I had no idea existed.

This is the look I got when I arrived home last night. Full of #catitude.

When I first started working at my new job last summer, I spotted a coffee mug in one of the kitchens.

I didn't meet the owner of the mug for another few weeks.We met one morning in the kitchen as we both prepared our morning coffees. She's a lovely human and the proud cat mom of three cats. She told me about them and gave me a baseball card of one of her cats...because her cats are rally cats. She has the most delightful Twitter account featuring her rally cats. It's through this account that I discovered an entire world of rally cat Twitter accounts. I had no idea this was a thing, but it seems like every MLB team has at least one fan who has devoted an account to his/her cat and favorite team. I truly believe this is why Twitter was invented.

I love many things about the rally cat community (and it is a community). They take care of one another and seem genuinely supportive of one another. One of the cats is sick and the parent is trying to raise money for care, so all of the rally cat accounts rallied to spread the message. The accounts are funny and creative, from cat-astic puns to fun promos for teams. Some of the cats will even let their owners put them in team clothing, something that Keely is never going to be into. The cats provide excellent color commentary on games. Honestly, I'd rather listen to a cat "tell" me what's happening than some of the broadcasters who call baseball games professionally. Of course, I follow my co-worker's account on Twitter and whenever she interacts with other rally cat accounts (I don't know that they actually describe themselves as such, but it's easier for my purposes here), it makes my heart happy. It's delightful.

Now some of the accounts are political too. Not overtly so, but the cats lean way more to the left than not and have taken some pretty firm stands on topics like gun control, immigration, and women's healthcare. Not all of these accounts are run by women, but they're all pretty unified in their dislike of the 45 and their desire for us to not be a dumpster fire country. I came for the cats and I stayed for the politics.

I didn't get to see my co-worker at Caturday, although I know she was there (she posted in the Facebook group and on Twitter). This might be one of the fails of Caturday: it didn't really feel like an event as much as a marketing moment. Yes, we got a Catitude t-shirt and were treated to some delightful cat puns throughout the evening, but other than that, it felt flat. Our seats were in the section under the scoreboard, so any fun thing that was posted, we didn't get to see, including the cat photos that were running before the game. I submitted a photo of Keely, but I have no idea if it was used. The Presidents Race featured a cat (Teddy had a lot of pets) and that was sort of fun. I wanted more. This is an organization that allowed Bryce Harper to come up with Rat Pack Night as a theme (which was terrible; I was at the first one) and does a great Star Wars Day, so I expected more.

Money from each of the special tickets benefits the Humane Rescue Alliance, a local rescue group supported by the Nationals. They were on hand yesterday for the event; we didn't go into their mobile adoption van. It looked busy, so I hope some lucky cats and kittens got adopted yesterday too. The Nats won the game 18-4; Mark Reynolds had 10 RBI in the game (tying Anthony Rendon's record from last season) and Trea Turner had eight. It was a good night for baseball.

Here's the photo of Keely I submitted. He's doing his best Derek Zoolander. I don't know if he can turn left.

Isn't he handsome? You know he was on the scoreboard because of his handsomeness. Hopefully, the Nats have another Caturday and I'll submit another photo of him and actually get to see it on the scoreboard. Until then, I'll be over here enjoying the rally cat community and trying to get Keely to turn left.