This totally slipped my mind until Friend-of-HardballTalk and Tater Trot Tracker impresario Larry Granillo tweeted about it a few minutes ago. And it’s super important, too.
Newest Tampa Bay Ray Matt Duffy loves cats. Indeed, he’s got a huge, huge cat that he very clearly adores. And it’s not just run-of-the-mill cat person stuff. His cat, Skeeter, has its own Instagram account and Twitter account. It’s a level of cat fancying that even puts a hardcore cat junkie like me to shame. My cats wish someone loved them as much as Matt Duffy loves Skeeter. We all do, really.
For their part, the Rays have rolled out the red carpet for both Duffy and Skeeter:
That’s wonderful, right? WRONG!
Rays center fielder Kevin Kiermaier hates cats. Which is his prerogative, of course — cats are jerks — but it goes beyond that. He thinks less of people who own cats and views their ownership of cats as a sign of inferiority or femininity or weakness or a point, in and of itself, to be mocked. He specifically said that no one listens to people who take pride in their friendship with their feline companions! He may even fear cat owners on some primal level. After all he has, in the past, blocked cat owners on social media simply because they are cat owners who make note of it on social media!
All of that said, I feel like Kiermaier and Duffy will still get along. They’re ballplayers with a lot in common and, as of now, are teammates. Assuming they do get along, of course, we’ll know that Kiermaier’s real problem is not with cat owners. But with taking what he imagined to be criticism from someone he doesn’t know, thereby causing him to lash out in a childlike fashion.
And that’s way better, right?
UPDATE: Oh. I see how it is.
