A runaway squirrel interrupted a game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Friday night and it was fantastic.
As Matt Carpenter stepped up to the plate against Phillies righty Phillippe Aumont in the second inning, the at-bat was intruded upon by a blood relative of Sandy Cheeks scampering up the net behind home plate.
The adventurous critter successfully scaled to the top of the net before falling to the level of the playing field and into the Phillies dugout, sending the players into a frenzy.
Hello squirrel pic.twitter.com/tvMpIPKlH3
— John Clark CSN (@JClarkCSN) June 20, 2015
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time that a rogue squirrel has interrupted a Cardinals-Phillies game. A squirrel on the loose famously appeared in Games 3 and 4 of the 2011 NLDS series between the two teams. Believed to have cost the Phillies a strike in Game 4, the rodent was quickly embraced by Cardinals fans and players alike as a good luck charm and dubbed “Rally Squirrel.” And on Friday night, Rally Squirrel’s cousin came back for an encore.
#RallySquirrel returns – or is that his cousin? pic.twitter.com/JNzP8XsG6a
— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) June 20, 2015
With the Cardinals embroiled in their hacking scandal of the Houston Astros and with the Phillies floundering at 23-45 on the season, this is exactly the type of lighthearted distraction that both teams need.
