He’s a dog person.
Lucas Hackmann knew he was going to be on television when he asked one of the other grounds crew members at the Cardinals-Royals game on Wednesday night if he should go after the cat that had wandered on the field.
But he didn’t quite think through how viral the moment could go.
The cat’s out of the bag! We’ve won 5 straight games and now sit only 1.5 games back in the NL Central. #RallyCat pic.twitter.com/uRoW1Ly2Xt
Cameras followed Hackmann as he rushed and scooped up the trespassing cat – and quickly realized it wasn’t exactly friendly. After a few steps into his heroic run, cameras caught Hackmann wincing as the cat clawed at him and bit his hand.
“Honestly I had no idea it was going to be kind of a ferocious cat, ” he said. “I thought it was going to be an easy jog back to the dugout.”
Hackmann took the cat to near the entrance of the stadium and deposited him with some of the team’s ushers.
“I knew my hand was pretty bad, it was covered in blood. I knew I needed to go to First Aid, ” he said. “So I went to First Aid and let the ushers handle it and I think it got away.”
According to a statement released by the Cardinals on Thursday, the ushers tried to contain the cat before a fan “grabbed it and claimed it was hers.”
“As she left the ballpark, our security team caught up with her and asked her some questions. She then abruptly left with the cat.”
The team added the grounds crew is working on a stray animal protocol to ensure the safety of players and the crew should this ever happen again.
Hackmann ended up spending two hours in the emergency room to get his wounds bandaged – and some doses of antibiotics.
“I’m fine, ” he said. “I just have a few bites and scratches.”
Hackmann, 20, has been working on the grounds crew since he was 16. It’s his summer job between semesters at Western Kentucky University and his brother also works with him on the grounds crew. Before this, he said, the most dramatic incident involving animals was just getting birds out of batting cages.
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
None of those went viral.
“It’s kind of hard to fathom how many people have seen me grabbing that cat, ” he said. “My phone is just absolutely blowing up. It’s been pretty overwhelming.”
So was he a cat person before this incident?
“No, ” he said. “I have dogs.”
