Paige Lakovic heard the meow first. She’d headed over to Section 103 before the Toledo Mud Hens’ game last Thursday. Staffers had been alerted: There was a cat in the seating area. Lakovic was out to find it, but the frightened kitty had already moved. But a little mew was all she needed to suss out his location.
“He was so small,” she says. “He really looked like a bunny … I was trying to get a look at him first before I just grabbed him. But I waited a little too long and he ran down the entire row. So I had to chase him down, and then I just kind of grabbed a scruff.” Lakovic, the media production coordinator for the Mud Hens, brought him back to the press box and put him in a corrugated box.
The kitten was so calm, Lakovic tells Defector. They put him on TV, noting on the broadcast he was “native to Fifth Third Field.” The staff let him out of his box and held him in the press box. “He seemed scared, but not scared enough to be shaking or anything like that,” she says. “We took him out and held him and he was so calm. I couldn’t believe it. He just laid in our hands.”
There was one extra bit of cleanup after the game: Who’d take home the kitten? As it so happens, Lakovic had recently moved to Toledo for the job with the Mud Hens, the Detroit Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate. Since she’s in a small apartment in a new city, she left her cat Phoebe home at her parents in Pittsburgh. Now she has a cat again. “It was all also new, but I just knew I couldn’t leave him,” she says. “I had to take him home with me.”
The Mud Hens have recent experience with home field critters. Seven years ago a possum ran onto the field before the bottom of the 10th inning. A few batters later, Jim Adduci hit a walkoff double. The Mud Hens’ rally possum complemented the parent ballclub’s rally goose (which, in typical Tigers’ fashion, promptly flew into the scoreboard).
Lakovic’s new kitty mascot is named Webley. It’s a tribute to longtime announcer Jim Weber, who died last August after calling 6,395 consecutive Mud Hens games. The team’s set up social media for Webley, who is adjusting to apartment life pretty well.
“Honestly, it seems like he was never outside,” she says. “He has adjusted so well. He already knew how to use the litter box. He has been so well behaved. It’s really, really awesome.” She’s taking him to the vet this week.
The Mud Hens dropped the first three games of Webley’s career with the club but are now 5-5 since adding the cat to the squad. He’s already tops on the team in several advanced stats like cWPA (Cute Win Pounce-ability Added), NAR (Naps Above Replacement) and MP/9 (Meows Per 9 Innings).