Trenton Thunder | The Baseball Bloggess

Sixty-two percent of Americans today live with a pet – a cat or a dog or both or a bunch.

In short, most of us. (Goldfish and gerbils aren’t even included in this statistic … so that must account for the rest of you.)

I live with four cats (invited) and an increasing number of gangster attic mice (uninvited). (I’m hopeful the mousies haven’t brought plague into the house.)

(That old saying “quiet as a mouse”? A lie. That old saying, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play”? Also a lie. Cats today no longer care.)

Isn’t it odd that we spend so much time on the Internet looking at pictures of cats …

Stevie is bored with this post already.

… and dogs …

My friend Ginger’s new pup Ruby discovers snow!

… when we already have one or some or a bunch at home we could be looking at instead?

Here’s a video of a cat who has learned sign language for “feed me.”

My cats also know sign language for “feed me” (extend claws, swipe). While they couldn’t care less about chasing delicious mice, they will bray like billy goats when hungry. If that doesn’t work, they’ll smack you.

It snowed today.

Which means some time for me to post my first Free Baseball of 2014 … i can haz baseball edition …

(I had my first “Free Baseball” of the season when the University of Virginia went to extra innings against Boston College on Saturday afternoon. UVa won 3-2 in 12, after Nick Howard who started the game as Designated Hitter came in during the 10th and pitched 2.1 scoreless innings. He struck out the side in the top of the 12th and then singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 12th.)

Ok, back to the critters …

10th Inning ~ Rookie The Retriever

Last summer, I wrote about Chase, the golden retriever “bat dog” of the Trenton Thunder, a Yankees minor league team. Sadly, Chase, who was 13, died of cancer last year.

But, Chase was good with the lady dogs and left a number of puppies as his legacy. A Chase grandpuppy, five-month-old “Rookie,” will take over his grandpa’s bat-retrieving work for the Thunder.

Apparently, there are trainers who will teach dogs to fetch bats. So, Rookie will get some schooling before he takes over the job full-time in 2015.

11th Inning ~ Hank the Brewer

While Rookie figures out the finer points of bat fetching, baseball has already begun for Hank, a stray pup who turned up last month in Phoenix, Arizona at the Milwaukee Brewers’ spring training camp.

They named him Hank in honor of Hank Aaron.

The Brewers announced last week that Hank’s now officially part of the team and he has already arrived in Milwaukee where he’s been adopted by a local family.

Watch Hank run in the Brewers’ Sausage Race.

(I mean it. Watch this video.)

12th Inning ~ Big O

Big Orange the cat showed up one day at Phoenix Municipal (Muni) Stadium, spring home of the Oakland A’s, and never left.

Unlike Rookie and Hank the dogs, cats cannot be bothered with retrieving bats (stupid) or running with men dressed as bratwurst (demeaning). (Cats are funny that way.)

One of the stadium employees takes care of “Big O.”

“The stadium manager kind of cut me some slack with running her off because she was kind of taking care of the rat population and the squirrels,” Jim Folk told Sports On Earth last spring.

“She’s definitely got a little attitude,” he said. “Like in the morning, when I quit petting her, she’ll swat me and then chase me down and grab onto my leg.”

The Oakland A’s are leaving the Muni for Hohokam Park next spring, and stadium employees are working to find a good new home for Big O.

* * * *