Ever since Baylor baseball players began feeding a beaver that wandered into their parking lot, the Bears haven’t lost. The win streak was extended to 23 games after Saturday night’s 1-0 win over Texas A&M.
“We showed up to the field a couple of weeks ago and there was a beaver rolling around the parking lot, ” relief pitcher Crayton Bare told Waco television station KWTX. “A couple of guys would feed him a few acorns from the trees. He walks a long way over from the Brazos but I think the acorns keep him there.”
The Brazos river (the spanish explorers called it the “River of the Arms of God”) is the longest river in Texas. It flows from its headwaters in New Mexico to the gulf and recently sent one of its residents wandering into Baylor ball park which is in Waco. This story is almost inexplicable, but it did make me smile. I’m not wild about the fate of this dusty beaver sticking around to get fed for the winning streak, and not confident about his fate when things turn sour, but remember, this is Texas so the odds are this may very well be the HAPPIEST beaver in the state.
And winning keeps the Bears feeding the beaver. In fact, “Feed the Beaver” has become the new catchphrase around Baylor Ballpark, which sits on the banks of the Brazos.
“(Max) Muncy hit a home run and Josh Michalec from the dugout was like, ‘Feed that beaver!'” Bare said. “We were like, oh, hold on. That’s kind of catchy.”
Now there are “Feed the Beaver” T-shirts being sold and the players have developed their own “Beaver shake” hand signal, similar to the Texas Rangers’ claw and antlers.
Well, I can’t find the t-shirt or find the secret beaver handshake on youtube, but if you want to follow the twitterfeed, the hashtag is #feedthebeaver .
In the mean time, let’s hope junior takes advantage of his good fortune to hi-tail it back to the river, and that for a moment rabid bear fans will apply their unlikely reverence to every beaver they meet in the next few months because it MIGHT be the special lucky one.
