The story didn’t end there: Rally Cat was taken from the stadium by a fan who (somehow) claimed to be his owner, but the woman lost control of the cat in St. Louis’s Citygarden. The next day, St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach announced to a fretful nation that Rally Cat had been found not far from where he had escaped, and since then the group has nursed Rally Cat to full health while bickering with the Cardinals over his ownership.

I have some great news to update about #rallycat!Rally cat has officially been cleared of quarantine by our vet! He… Posted by St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach on Tuesday, August 22, 2017

You could say the Rally Cat story has nine lives. I regret nothing in writing that.

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On Thursday came the endgame: St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach announced that it would not be returning Rally Cat to the Cardinals, even though the team had announced that Rally Cat Appreciation Day would be held on Sept. 10.

At issue is the Cardinals’ public statements last week that Rally Cat would be returned to them to live a comfortable life spurring (purring?) rallies at Busch Stadium. The team apparently made such declarations without clearing them first with St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach, which took to Facebook to blast the Cardinals for making false statements. The team then asked the rescue group to take down the Facebook post, according to the Post-Dispatch, and it refused. And now the Cardinals won’t be getting Rally Cat.

“Cat people are different human beings than the rest of us,” Al Watkins, described as “Rally Cat’s lawyer” in a Riverfront Times headline, said Thursday. “They take very seriously that the best interest of the cat is being prioritized and it became clear that the Cardinals were more interested in exploiting the cat for commercial interests.

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“Nobody likes a bully in the litter box.”

Said Cardinals PR executive Ron Watermon: “Getting straight answers from the group has been like herding cats. We would dispute their version of things but don’t want to be engaged in a cat fight.”

As for Rally Cat’s future, he is living with a St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach volunteer at the moment until he puts on a little more weight and a “serendipitous match” can be found with a permanent family, Watkins said. Rally Cat Appreciation Day will be held as planned Sept. 10, with fans getting a Rally Cat T-shirt and proceeds going to Tony LaRussa’s Animal Rescue Foundation and St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach.

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The Cardinals can look east to Newark’s Prudential Center and the New Jersey Devils for the right way to go about such things. Catrick Elias is an excellent Devils-themed cat name, but we also would have accepted Clawed Lemeow.