Given ongoing concerns about extreme weather and hurricanes, besides the usual running disaster of the Emoluments Clause-violating owner of Mar-A-Lago ruining everything he touches in government, why is 3CM the loser wasting semi-precious DK server space on YAPD (Yet Another Pootie Diary)? Well, since it's his series, he can, but more to the point, the earlier SNLC on the kitteh now known as Rally Cat has some follow-up coming to it. In brief, last month, a spunky kitten scampered on to the field at Busch Stadium, just before a game-changing grand slam by Yadier Molina. This led to all sort of silliness, complete with the Twitter hashtag #rallycat, cat puns on the Cardinals' Twitter feed galore, a short winning streak by the Cardinals, and a planned "Rally Cat Appreciation Day" for tomorrow.
Except that if you look on the Cardinals' calendar for ancillary events on the day of tomorrow's game, Rally Cat is nowhere to be found. Instead, you get notice of a Build-A-Bear Cardinals Pup for kids (natch), Prairie Farms Ice Cream Sundays, and Prairie Farms Kids Run the Bases. All of those are nice events in of themselves, of course. However, it would appear that a catfight (sorry) broke out between the Cardinals and the volunteer group that captured Rally Cat from the urban jungle post-game, St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach (STLFCO), on the question of what would happen to Rally Cat, and who would take custody of him (and it is established that Rally Cat is a he-cat rather than a she-cat).
To piece together some of the chronology in the war of words regarding Rally Cat:
1. Sometime on Thursday 8/17/17 (presumably before 1:19 PM, according to an article the next day (Friday 8/18/17) in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, reporter Erin Heffernan quoted a member of Cardinals upper management:
‘“The St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach organization has assured us they will be returning our cat to us after a mandatory 10-day quarantine period,” Ron Watermon, the team’s vice president of communications, said in an email to a reporter Wednesday.”’
2. Not so fast, according to STLFCO, where Heffernan noted:
“The nonprofit fired back with a statement published on social media Thursday afternoon claiming no such promise was made."
This is the full text of that STLFCO statement on FB, dated Thursday 8/17/17, 1:19 PM:
“It was a disappointment to STLFCO and many of our friends and fans to read the Cardinal's PR Head Ron Watermon's comments to the media concerning Rally. It was a totally false statement that STLFCO has committed anything to the Cardinals. We have made no decisions about Rally’s long-term placement. It seems inconsistent with “The Cardinals Way” to make such false statements.
We have neither the PR staff nor the skilled volunteers to engage in a media dialog with Mr Watermon's old-school PR tactics, so this note will be all we have to say on his position.
We had contacted Mr Watermon earlier this week and we just now got a voicemail reply from him. Our Board Member team consists of non-paid volunteers who have full time jobs outside of STLFCO. Due to our many commitments and complex schedules, we told the Cardinals we'd be delighted to meet later this month, the first time the entire group can meet with them to discuss the situation. Perhaps we can find a way to reach out to the Senior Leadership of the Cardinals (the Dewitts, Mike Whittle, etc) and meet with them, as Mr. Watermon's perceived bullying tactics shocked us.
We really want to meet with the Cardinals to discuss this opportunity for a win-win-win-WIN for Rally, the Cardinals, STLFCO, and the city of St Louis. STLFCO is a tireless advocate for all homeless cats in the region – and a great friend to many local animal welfare organizations. We truly want what is best for Rally and for every vulnerable cat in St Louis. We hope to connect with other members of Cardinal's management shortly.
Stay tuned!’
3. Watermon fired back later the same day, in an e-mail apparently to Hefferman, quoted in the article:
‘Watermon said he was surprised by the nonprofit’s response Thursday.
“It is personally hurtful to me, irresponsible and, frankly, childish,” Watermon said in an email. “There is no need for the organization to personally attack me for doing my job.”’
On one obvious level, this is a classic David (STLFCO) vs. Goliath (St. Louis Cardinals) situation, where, in principle, one might expect greater sympathy for the underdog. However, since this is STL, a big sports town, STLFCO received a hefty quantity of social media abuse from Cardinals fanatics (remember that this is the parent word of “fan”). Plus, it’s easy to caricature STLFCO as “crazy cat ladies”, since their organization’s board of directors demographic (all women) presents an easy target that way.
As things developed, the “crazy cat ladies”“stood their ground” (forgive the metaphor), per a P-D article the next Friday, 8/25/17, again from Heffernan, quoting lawyer Al Watkins, whom STLFCO took on as legal counsel in this situation:
“Watkins said discussions about the adoption ended after the Cardinals demanded the post be taken down and the group refused.”
Earlier, with just a mild touch of snark (hey, reporters are allowed sometimes – and this kind of ‘silly season’ story rather requires it, in tasteful doses), Heffernan quoted earlier from Watkins:
‘The cat nonprofit claims the Cardinals organization has the wrong priorities.
“Cat people are different human beings than the rest of us,” said Al Watkins, legal counsel for the nonprofit and Rally Cat —yes, the cat has a lawyer. “They take very seriously that the best interest of the cat is being prioritized and it became clear that the Cardinals were more interested in exploiting the cat for commercial interests.”’
Granted, given the circumstances, it’s understandable that the Cardinals would want to make as much of a marketing opportunity as possible out of Rally Cat. In their shoes, I would have done the same thing. But I like to think that I would have done so more intelligently. However, clearly the whole Rally Cat fracas left some bruises. The Cardinals took any photos of Rally Cat tearing across the field down from their Twitter feed banner, which may have been just as well, since the Cardinals haven’t been doing all that well of late, as P-D sports columnist Ben Frederickson noted here:
“…the whole thing has devolved into a rather silly and embarrassing public spat about the cat's future. And that's not the biggest reason to turn the page.
Seemingly lost in the commotion is the realization that, hello, the rally died before the cat completed quarantine.”
Frederickson summarizes, pretty bluntly:
“The same day the rescue organization again clawed Cardinals executives, the Cardinals lost a series. To the Padres. At home. The Padres have lost 13 more games than they've won this season. They are 24-40 on the road. The names of their players are as familiar as random ones pulled from the phonebook. And the Cardinals dropped two of three to them at Busch. For those wondering, the loss moved the Cardinals' post Rally Cat record to seven wins and seven losses. So, 6-7 in 13 full games since. They've been outscored 75-84 since. What rally?”
Going into “hindsight is 20-20 mode”, Frederickson sums up:
“Look, it's a shame things didn't work out differently for everyone involved. Had the cat people and the Cardinals communicated better, perhaps some money might have been raised for fellow strays. But that opportunity was mauled.”
Getting back to what I mentioned about any trace of Rally Cat disappearing from the Cardinals’ events calendar, Frederick commented back on August 26:
“Rally Cat Appreciation Day, scheduled for Sept. 10, needs to be scrubbed from the schedule. The Cardinals, like brave grounds crew member Lucas Hackmann, need to lick their wounds.”
The Cardinals certainly did scrub Rally Cat Appreciation Day from their schedule, and from what I can tell, LH seems to be doing fine. In fact, perhaps the most important character in this story, Rally Cat himself, seems to be OK, at least as of August 22, per this FB post from STLFCO:
“Rally cat has officially been cleared of quarantine by our vet! He still only weighs a little more than a pound so he is currently on prescription high calorie food to help him gain some weight.
Rally Cat is still too small to receive his vaccinations / neuter and he is being monitored closely in a foster home. Our vet will continue keeping a close eye on him over the next couple weeks.”
Note Rally Cat’s weight as of 2.5 weeks ago: “a little more than a pound”. I have no experience taking care of kittens, just older (and obviously bigger) cats. So I don’t really know if little more than a pound is about to be expected, or too light, especially as it’s not 100% clear how old/young Rally Cat is. But in hindsight, Rally Cat might not even have been fully fit for a public appearance tomorrow at Busch Stadium even with clearing quarantine and a health check, after he bit LH. Rally Cat has a temporary foster home for now, and I don’t doubt that he’s getting a lot of TLC there.
It’s been a “couple weeks” since that last post, but self hasn’t seen anything new about Rally Cat since then. Maybe it’s just as well for the peace and quiet after his 15 minutes of fame. I don’t doubt that he’ll find a good home, as even after the hoopla has waned, probably loads of people want to adopt him. If there is an update down the line, we shall see.
With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week….
