'Rally Bird' Spurs Rangers?
ARLINGTON, Texas — In the top of the fourth inning on Saturday night, the Texas Rangers may have stumbled into a new ally — a "rally bird."
With Seattle’s J.P. Crawford at first base, the bird — which was flying around the roof area of Globe Life Field on Friday night — landed at first base near both Crawford and Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe.
It caught the attention of the 31,621 in attendance. It also caught Rangers manager Chris Woodward’s attention. It now has its own image on Twitter.
By the end of the fourth inning, the bird was off the field — but the Rangers were up 4-3, and on their way to a 7-3 win.
Woodward says he’ll take whatever he can get as the Rangers just snapped a nine-game losing streak to Seattle.
“Yeah, rally monkey, rally bird, whatever works for us,” Woodward said, referencing the Angels' monkey mascot from their last postseason runs. “I was worried because it’s like, you don’t know what’s going to happen at first base. If someone moves, where is (the bird) going to go? You could tell the fans got a kick out of it. We’ll put him up on the TV screen and give him all the publicity he wants.”
Well, someone did move. Crawford bolted from first base after Sam Haggerty drew a walk. That did startle the bird enough to get him to move … to third base, next to Rangers infielder Ezequiel Duran.
He tried to shoo the bird away out of concern for its safety, he said through a translator.
“I was just trying to move it out of the way,” Duran said. “I didn’t want it to get hurt, and I wanted it out of the way in case I had to go that direction (the third-base line).”
The inning ended without incident, and the bird wandered toward the shortstop area. No one bothered it, not the two umpires standing and talking nearby, not the other Mariners infielders. The bird only flew away after Crawford — who had already startled the bird once — took warm-up grounders about five feet away from it.
The bird flew away, and the Rangers proceeded to score four runs off Mariners starter Marco Gonzales, and went on to win. The bird did circle around the top of the stadium a few more times as the game continued, but never reappeared on the field.
Will the bird return on Sunday for the final game of the series? The Rangers can only hope.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard
Catch up with Inside the Rangers on Facebook and Twitter.
