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Home » Good CATch

Good CATch

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t usually post on Sundays, but I couldn’t resist putting these up. We can use some feel-good stories, right?:

Comments

Good CATch — 30 Comments

  1. We can surmise Biden voters didn’t catch that cat…
    ______________________________

    INCREDIBLE CATCH. CRAIG COMER SAYS HIS WIFE BRINGS AN AMERICAN FLAG TO ALL THE UM FOOTBALL GAMES AT HARD ROCK STADIUM.

  2. I’m always amazed by the number of stray animals in stadiums. There are all kinds of video on YouTube of the dealings with them by fans and grounds crews.

  3. Griffin,
    Fans drop food. Mice eat food. Stray cats eat mice. Plus , they are often easily accessible shelters , for small animals, from the environment

  5. Griffin says, “There are all kinds of video on YouTube of the dealings with them by fans and grounds crews.”

    One legendary appearance of a cat in a baseball game happened in September 1969, when the Cubs were hoping to stay ahead of the Mets to win the NL East. The Cubs were playing the Mets in Shea Stadium, when a black cat ran out (one rumor maintains that it was released by a Mets fan) near the Cubs dugout. The cat ran around Ron Santo, who was standing in the on-deck circle, then turned and glared at the rest of the Cubs sitting in the dugout. The Cubs not only lost that game, but collapsed for the remainder of the season and lost the division to the Mets.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAtniVkVQHQ&ab_channel=SharonR.Meade

    The Cubs’ batboy at the time remembered that the cat “was creeping toward Cubs manager Leo Durocher, who was seated in the dugout. ‘He was saying, “Somebody get that f—— cat outta here. Get him away from me!”‘ I didn’t know if I should laugh or what. I mean, I was a kid. But we were playing like crap, and now this.”

    https://www.si.com/mlb/2019/09/06/chicago-cubs-new-york-mets-black-cat

  7. Another feel-good cat (and dog) story: this one started in May 1990 but is ongoing:

    From Sports Illustrated: “The Oakland Athletics, the defending World Series champions, were at home in the Oakland Coliseum with more than 30,000 fans on hand for a May 7 series opener against the Yankees. Midgame, something weird happened. A feral cat ran onto the field. The game stopped. But the cat had a fan in A’s manager Tony La Russa.

    ‘It starts to get a little unreal,’ La Russa said 30 years later. . . . La Russa and others helped corral the cat, which he would name Evie after team owner Walter A. Haas Jr.’s wife, Evelyn.

    A day later, La Russa’s wife, Elaine, looked into area shelters that could take in the cat. There was no room at the inn. But Tony and Elaine La Russa kept Evie. And the following February they opened the Animal Rescue Foundation, which has grown to be a Walnut Creek-based East Bay powerhouse in not only animal rescues but also in spaying and neutering. In the last three decades, the organization says 42,000 dogs and cats have been rescued and a like number have been spayed or neutered. . . .

    ‘Thirty years ago, that cat ran on the field,’ A’s Hall of Fame reliever Dennis Eckersley said in a shoutout to ARF on its 30 birthday. ‘Look what it turned into. Nobody could understand that this would end up like this.’”

    Here’s a short video about Evie the cat:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp-8sJ6Wfro&ab_channel=TonyLaRussa%27sAnimalRescueFoundation

  8. In some of the videos you can see the cat straighten himself out and then spread out his body to slow down his fall and then prepare to land on his feet. I don’t know how that would have worked out for him if the guy wasn’t there with the flag though.
    I loved the ending where the guy holds him up in the air like Simba.
    On another video there was a woman (maybe this guy’s wife) holding the cat and petting him. The cat was completely unfazed. Just another day in the life.

  9. American Flag: $35

    Seasons Tickets to Miami Hurricanes games: $304*

    Saving the cat on national TV: Priceless

    Thanks for that smile Neo.

    *Based on the 2021 average cost. Some go way, way higher.

  10. Eva Marie,
    Yes, my mother had a fluffy cat that would jump off a one story roof and do just as you observed, spread himself out, , legs sticking outward until the last fraction of a second, almost like a flying squirrel, to seemingly slow his fall.

  11. A couple of years ago Rally Cat running on the field during a St Louis baseball game went viral.

  12. Was wondering how the cat got there but as commented I guess their all over the place if food is available.

  14. Yes, my mother had a fluffy cat that would jump off a one story roof and do just as you observed, spread himself out, , legs sticking outward until the last fraction of a second, almost like a flying squirrel, to seemingly slow his fall.

    jon baker:

    Then the humans want to get into the act. Here’s wingsuit flying, i.e. let’s be flying squirrels!

    –“Wingsuit Flying Formation in “The Crack” | Miles Above 3.0″
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRxSUkZYeOE

    Do these people have insurance? How much does it cost?

  15. The commentator in the second clip mentioned that the cat had a collar.
    Maybe someone brought it along for the ride, or it lives in the area and knows when the lunch counter is open.

    Anyway, super story, as are the others in the comments, some of which I have seen because everyone loves to post about cats doing their thing: driving people crazy.

  16. Another “catch” story, although this one is about rats rather than cats.

    ICYMI – here’s the background.
    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313108

    Six security prisoners escaped from Gilboa Prison in northern Israel overnight Sunday, through a tunnel they dug. [under the toilet or sink area]
    …
    Following the escape, prison officials have transferred other security prisoners from the wing where the tunnel was dug to other prisons across Israel, amid concerns that there could be additional tunnels yet to be uncovered.

    It is believed that the tunnel used for the escape was dug over the course of several years.

    Four of them were soon captured, in 2 separate locations, because they didn’t seem to have much of a plan for getting away once they were out of the prison.

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313283

    …two were captured near Nazareth and were detained without resistance. They are … Yacoub Qadri and Mohammed Ardah of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. Ardah is the leader of the squad who planned and led the escape operation.
    …
    The second group of two included Fatah’s Zakaria Zubeidi, and Islamic Jihad’s Mahmad Ardah,
    …
    They were captured after arousing the suspicion of locals who saw them rummaging through garbage cans and looking for food. The two terrorists asked passersby for food but had done so with their faces covered which aroused suspicion.

    The locals alerted the Israel Police and the Shin Bet, who rushed to the scene.

    I don’t think those four had much of a plan — however, the two other escapees apparently did, as they are still missing.

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313373

    An interrogation of the four terrorists captured over the weekend revealed that on the morning after their escape from Gilboa Prison, the six terrorists stayed in the village of Na’ura, east of Afula, for 20 minutes.

    During that time, Zakaria Zubeidi asked several citizens in the village to take him in their vehicle to the territories of Judea and Samaria, but they all refused to cooperate, according to a report on Kan 11 News.

    There are some leads on the two missing rats, who may have had communications with people outside the prison (as alleged in other stories), and set up some get-away transportation, without inviting their colleagues along.

    No honor among terrorists.

  17. cats doing their thing: driving people crazy.

    There have been several incidents reported of cats causing trouble on the flight deck of a commercial aircraft after takeoff, usually because the cat sneaked aboard while the plane was in the hangar for overnight cleaning; slept behind the seats in the cockpit; woke up during takeoff; and attacked the pilots in its confusion and distress. From the IATA News: (warning: bad puns ahead)

    “Some aviation stories are pawsitively unbelievable, but in this case, we’re not kitten around. A Tarco Airlines flight from Khartoum (KRT) to Doha (DOH) had to return to its origin after pilots encountered a fur-midable opponent shortly after takeoff. The Boeing 737 departed Khartoum on time, and was around 30 minutes into its journey when a cat-astrophe occurred. A feline stowaway appeared unexpectedly in the cockpit, to the great surprise of the Sudanese pilots. . . . the kitty was not a happy passenger, and proceeded to attack the captain. While the crew made every attempt to capture the aggressive stowaway, it proved impossible to get near the furry hijacker. Unable to continue the journey, the pilots set about returning to Khartoum, to the surprise of the passengers onboard. . . . Of course, the ICAO code for Khartoum – HSSS – is completely coincidental, but beautifully expresses the emotion felt by the cat at finding he was several thousand feet in the air.”

    https://www.iatanews.com/2021/03/01/angry-cat-attacks-pilot-forcing-boeing-737-diversion/

    At least the cat hadn’t used the captain’s seat for a litter box.

  19. At 32 feet per second square the poor thing would have been road kill. What impressed me the most was the guys who grabbed the cat after the rescue. The little guy had to have dug his claws into their chest, but they remained jovial, unhooked the little guy, and carried him/her/what the hell’s your pronoun for cats, off. The safe way to do that is to wrap the fella up in a blanket, flag, or whatever’s available

  21. AesopFan:

    Puns aside, some nonbinary folk are now using “cat” as their purrsonal pronoun. According to Pronoun Wiki, here is how to use “cat” properly in order not to offend someone who identifies as one:

    “Catself pronouns is a gender neutral neopronoun set inspired by the word ‘cat.’ Anyone can use them, regardless of gender identity or expression.

    Case Pronoun Example

    Nominative Cat Cat went to the store
    Accusative Cat I met cat today
    Possessive Cat’s or Cats Cat walked cat’s dog today OR
    Cat walked cats dog today
    Predicate Possessive Cat’s or Cats If I need a phone my friend will let
    me borrow cat’s OR
    my friend will let me borrow cats
    Reflexive Catself Cat has to drive catself to school

    Origin: The pronouns were coined by Tumblr user xeno-aligned on 10 September 2018.”

    https://pronoun.fandom.com/wiki/Catself

    You can’t make this stuff up.

  23. Meanwhile, September 13th is Arnold Schoenberg’s birthday!

    Great video. Thanks for the link, Cappy.

    If only Saturday had been Schrödinger’s.

  24. Cats survive falls from incredible heights all the time, but there’s a middle zone from IIRC 2-9 stories where they do not. Under two stories, their natural springiness saves them, and over nine stories they relax and spread out and slow their fall, but in between they don’t have either defense.

  25. This is one reason people say that cats have nine lives – they walk away from falls that would kill a lot of other animals. Here’s how it works.

    Slow Motion Flipping Cat Physics | Smarter Every Day 58

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWbpyjJqrU

    If you run the second video in Neo’s post at .25 speed, you can see the cat twist just after letting go, before spreading his legs for the parasail maneuver, but it still happens very fast.

    I’m going to find this guy’s other videos on cats later, but they were published in 2012 so who knows if they will turn up.

    Next I’ll explain how the physics involved in flipping cats allow us to operate Space Telescopes (Seriously).
    So as simple of a question as this is, it turns out to be a MAJOR POINT OF STUDY in Physics, Robotics, Space Satellite Control, Weapons Development, Biomedical Engineering, etc. It’s stumped scientists and engineers since Newton’s day. Here’s something interesting. The cat isn’t twisting his back.. he’s actually BENDING it.

    The next video will go into great detail about what’s going on there, and explain how it relates to studying the farthest points in the universe (Seriously… the fact that a cat can do this allows us to study the Universe.. no exaggeration).

    EDIT
    Found it.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AR4yntqLsQ
    Space Telescopes Maneuver like CATS – Smarter Every Day 59

  27. huxley,
    I suspect that those wing suites require significant body strength and endurance, and shoulders not prone to dislocation.

  30. @AesopFan:

    Well I’m glad the Replication Crisis won’t require more cats to take flying lessons. There’s going to be a lot of disappointed dogs and canaries though.

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