Omaha hosts 'Take Meow't to the Ballgame' Night

Take meow’t to the ballgame, take meow't with the crowd -- wait, those aren’t the words! Are they?

For one night in Omaha, they were.

On Saturday, the Royals’ Triple-A affiliate catered to the cat lovers with the club’s third annual “Take Meow’t to the Ballgame” Night, which is like the traditional "Bark in the Park," but for cats.

“It was a thing before, and our team president, Martie Cordaro, brought it back,” said Omaha’s game operations manager Andrew Rosenau. “We treat it just like a 'Bark in the Park' day. [The cats] just sit on the berm and enjoy the game with us.”

The idea originated in 2011, when the State College Spikes hosted a “Purr in the Park” night. The Storm Chasers decided to make it one of their traditions in 2021. The turnout that inaugural year wasn’t great, but hosting the night in 2022 and now 2023 has been rousing successes.

Cats have to be pre-registered and be on either a leash or in a carrier, which definitely creates some amusing visuals for anybody who's never seen a cat with a harness before. As expected, the in-game entertainment -- and even the team’s Twitter account -- was almost exclusively cat-themed.

“We do a bunch of stuff on the videoboard, so we had cats that pop up behind player headshots, we have funny cat videos from a bunch of different TV shows and movies,” Rosenau said. “Our audio guys plays different cat sounds effects, different songs. Everything that you can think of is covered.”

All of that is humorous enough, but the Storm Chasers took it to another level when they did a “cat nap” in the middle of the third inning. Instead of promotions or advertisements, the club played videos of cats sleeping for a minute and a half.

“Everything we do is surrounded by cats,” Rosenau added.

Rosneau said around 40-50 cats came out the ballgame Saturday, about the same number as last year’s event. Of course, Omaha avoids things like fireworks night and general loud noises to avoid spooking the felines, so in classic cat fashion, they can sit back, relax and enjoy America’s pastime.

“They just sit there and watch the game,” Rosneau said. “It’s surprisingly not as bad as you think it would be.”

If the entire theme of the night wasn't great enough, the Storm Chasers put on a show for cats and humans alike when they erased a six-run deficit en route to an 11-9 victory. Talk about a happy Cat-urday!