Oh Mickey You're So Fine

Many a baseball fan has been enchanted over the years to see a break in the action as suddenly a cat comes running onto the field, eluding outfielders and umpires as it skittles around for a while. No doubt embarrassed by the hoots and hollers of the summer night crowd, soon enough it heads back to whence it came, and the ballgame resumes.

And then people say, how about that? A cat came to the ballgame!

It's more like the fans came to the cat's house (for younger readers, there was a time in America when people attended sporting events in person, believe it or not!). Look at the average ballpark. 81 times a year, a crowd shows up to watch baseball, pop popcorn and hot dogs down their necks and guzzle beer and soda and whatever else.

I hope you don't think that a thorough sweeping and cleaning ensues. Sure, the big stuff is hauled out, but there is enough food left behind to feed a battalion of...get ready...rodents. Mice and rats live in the same place, but not as long as the cats do.  That's the order of things. Ballparks and other large open areas have always had a tacit arrangement with the cat kingdom: they can hang around, but they have to take the background while the athletes are doing their thing.

I mean, think about farms you have visited. Siloes full of corn and grains! That's a buffet dinner for a rodent, and so Farmer Al Falfa (above) needs to get the mice and rats out of there, before they eat his bottom line and half the corn. Why hire a professional exterminator when the original professional exterminator is right there, looking for something to eat. 

And by the way, they don't want the corn.

So please don't let it come as a surprise that DisneyLand out in California has a squad of some 200 felines on the job for this very purpose. They are feral cats by definition, but feral cats are known to shy away from people. They understand they're on the night shift. People who go to the park say it's rare to see Felix strolling down the way, although it's not unheard of.

Disneyland does provide them with food, and veterinary care as needed. And should any cat be seen cozying up to guests one time too often, it loses its job and is placed up for adoption among park employees.

According to the legend, it was The Big Man himself, Walt Disney, who, prior to opening the park in 1955, took a crew to Sleeping Beauty Castle for final preparations, and found a large cat contingent had already made themselves at home. Disney knew it would be a public relations nightmare to hold a mass purge, and was also smart enough to see the rodent problem that lay ahead with all those people and all those food scraps, so the herd was maintained and is still on the job to this day.

It falls upon the crew at the Circle D Ranch, who also husband the horses who pull the big trolley and the goats at the ranch, to manage the cats (as much as cats can be managed, let's be honest!) They try to keep the population spayed and neutered, but Zero Population Growth is not the plan to follow when you're looking for free labor, so there are births, and the other thing.

Disney being an open shop, there is no union for the cats. And by the way, Disneyland in California is forthcoming about their cat squad, while there is no official confirmation that one exists in Disney World in hellish Florida that I can find. But people say they are there, and why not?

There is a certain circle of life to a park founded by a mouse enlisting the help of cats to get rid of mice, though.