Watch: Cat has ‘field’ day eluding Yankee Stadium staff, delays game, delights crowd

NEW YORK — Forget the seventh-inning stretch.

An unaccompanied cat burst onto the field in the bottom of the eighth inning of Monday night’s Yankees-Orioles game, vexing Yankee Stadium groundskeepers and delighting fans with its acrobatic antics.

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Video posted to social media shows the cat, nicknamed “Bodega Cat” in some videos, evade the Yankees’ grounds crew for more than four minutes, while the crowd cheered and chanted “MVP” and “Let’s Go Cat,” WPIX reported.

In turn, The New York Times offered the following play-by-play:

• Cameras first caught the cat loitering between pitches in foul territory on the third base side. After Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge fouled off a pitch on a 1-2 count, the cat darted into left-center field, forcing the game’s delay.
• The feline then pranced along the warning track near the Orioles bullpen, before leaping onto the fence.
• After shimmying across the fence, the cat hopped off and took a gander at the view.
• Humans began approaching; the crowd booed.
• But the humans were no match as the cat easily ran away from them. The crowd cheered.
• It hopped on and off the fence, leaping high but not nearly high enough to escape, plummeting several times to the ground. Being a cat, it repeatedly got up.
• Four humans surrounded it; they were unsuccessful. The crowd began chanting, “M.V.P.”
• Five more humans surrounded it; they had no chance.
• The cat cowered under the fence near the left foul pole. This time, seven people converged.
• It ran straight between the legs of a man as it escaped; the crowd went wild.
• But the cheers turned to boos when the cat headed straight through an open door on the third-base line and ran off the field.

The Yankees were down seven runs to the Orioles at the time the cat paraded onto the field, and eventually lost 7-1, WPIX reported.

Orioles outfielder Cedric Mullins told MLB.com that he saw the cat in the dugout earlier in the game, “just chilling.”

“Next thing I know, I heard all the fans cheering. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t see the cat until he was out at the outfield wall. Then it was seeing seven grown men get their ankles broken by a cat. It was pretty funny to watch,” Mullins added.

According to the Times, the fate of the cat remained unknown Monday night after a Yankees spokesman did not respond to a message seeking comment.

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