The Randy Johnson bird hunting club is the fastest-growing inner circle in Major League Baseball. For the second time in a span of seven days, a bird was brutally killed on the field of a major league ballpark. Last week it was Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen taking out a bird mid-flight with a warmup pitch. The unsuspecting game bird failed to read the trajectory of Gallen’s pitch, which is understandable for an inexperienced novice with a literal bird brain, and flew into the path of Gallen’s curveball as he warmed up on the outfield.
This week, Cleveland Guardians rookie Will Brennan laid waste to a bird with a whistling line drive that instantly killed a bird flying in the path of the ball. The Guardians still managed to notch the win over the White Sox in the first matchup of their 30-game series.
Birds are arguably the most intrusive mammals on the planet. Most animals scurry when they see large gatherings of humans. Birds take dumps from trees and even midflight, fly into our windshields, and pitches, and rarely watch where they are going. Just last week, I was personally hit by a stray dropping, so excuse my anti-bird harangue. For them to intrude in the space humans occupy on the surface is negligent and these birds suffered the consequences. My only advice to low-flying birds would be to borrow the advice of MLB hitting coaches and suggest they adjust their launch angles.
No comment from the Blue Jays, Orioles or Cardinals
The Blue Jays, Orioles, and Cardinals haven’t commented yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they recommend Rob Manfred installing a bird porch in major league ballparks or maybe place a sign somewhere. Somewhere directly above the arm barn might do the trick.
Neither of the birds hit this week cartoonishly exploded in the manner of Johnson’s, which demonstrates just how differently the Hall of Fame pitcher was built in his prime.
An epidemic of birds taking the full brunt of a tightly wound baseball and not getting up can’t be coincidental, right? Hopefully, this doesn’t presage the beginning of some Hitchcockian war against birds or PETA, which demanded MLB change the name of its bullpens to arm barns, as a show of respect to cows. I’d imagine a summer of dead birds strewn across MLB ballparks would catch the attention of their most avid members.