Meet My Least Favorite Former Mets Minor Leaguer

Unless you were a huge fan of the "Man on Street" character so craftily portrayed in "What Women Want," you've probably never heard of Joe Petcka. He was drafted by the Mets in 1992, and knocked around the minor leagues before giving up baseball and taking up acting. And cat-beating.

Joe had a fight with his girlfriend, a fight in which he reportedly told his girlfriend (Sports Illustrated reporter Lisa Altobelli) that she loved the cat more than she loved him (Lisa's a pretty good judge of character, as it turns out). Anyway, Joe allegedly left after the fight, came back the next day when Lisa wasn't there, and beat Norman the cat to death.

That's the sickest thing about it. This wasn't even a moment of rage, where he tried to make some grand, passionate, disgustingly misguided point by hurting the cat in front of the girl. No, he came back later and stared the feline down in some kind of "Alright, Norman, it's time you and me finally went toe-to-toe" moment. From the Post:

The 6-foot-3, 205-pound bruiser allegedly punched the orange-and-white, 71/2-pound puss numerous times, leaving it with a cut lip, broken ribs, fractured teeth, a split tongue, torn lungs and blood in its chest cavity, said Robert Reisman, a veterinarian with the ASPCA.

His attorney claims that the cat bit him first, and that "any injuries to the cat were in response to being bit." I could maybe accept that all that violence was been necessary, had Norman been a bloodthirsty goddamn African lion. Norman's a 7-pound tabby, though. A single shot from a squirt gun probably would've done the trick on Norman.

He's charged with a felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals. Two years in prison are possible. Hopefully, in a cell with a large, violent, foul-smelling man with an addiction to non-consensual anal sex. And I want this man to be named Norman.

'Sex' Jock A 'Cruel Cat Killer' [New York Post] Joe Petcka [imdb.com]