Entertainment

A bald eagle landed on the pitcher at a Major League Baseball game

The eagle has landed.
The eagle has landed. The eagle has landed.

A recent incident at a Seattle Mariners baseball game is giving life to the mantra “Never work with children or animals”.

On Thursday evening, before the first pitch, players from the Mariners and opponents the Minnesota Twins lined up to hear the national anthem.

All was going well, with an eagle-swoop into the stadium planned.

Unfortunately, rather than fly to its handler, the eagle in question chose to settle on the shoulder of Mariners’ pitcher James Paxton.

Paxton reacted calmly, shrugging the bird off to be collected by its handler.

Perhaps the bald eagle, the national symbol of the US, wanted to show the Canadian pitcher a bit of American spirit.

After the game, Paxton said: “I wasn’t going to run, I figured I’m not going to outrun an eagle, so we might as well just see what happens.”

Meanwhile, Mariners manager Scott Servais was quoted by the Seattle Times as saying: “I was standing on the line next to Dee Gordon and he said ‘Skip, I don’t think that eagle is going to land on that guy. He’s going to land on you.’

“I said ‘No, Dee, he ain’t going to land on me.’

“And I’ll be danged if that eagle didn’t come and land on our starting pitcher. It was crazy.”

It seems the eagle landing was a bad omen rather than a good one. The Mariners lost 4-2.