(clearly, adopting a chicken mascot is sort of like naming your band New Order. If it worked the first time, where’s the harm in trying again?)
Following Mets reliever Frank Francisco’s much publicized description of the Yankees as “chickens”, teammate Tim Brydak preceded Francisco’s highwire act at the end of last night’s 6-4 victory by bringing an actual chicken into the home clubhouse at Citi Field. After paying $8 for the bird in Chinatown, Byrdak was reminded by Jason Bay, “You can’t just put it out on Roosevelt Ave.” From ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin :
The chicken spent Friday night in a cage at Citi Field. Team chef Theresa Corderi fed the bird a meal of oatmeal, berries and bread after doing research into the appropriate cuisine on the internet.
“If anybody has a chicken farm or a petting zoo or somewhere where we can get him nice, I’d rather not kill Little Jerry Seinfeld,” Byrdak said.
Byrdak seemed receptive to an offer from Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, N.Y., which attempts to fight cruelty at factory farms and slaughterhouses.
“We’re trying to get him into a chicken sanctuary or somewhere where he can rest comfortably for the rest of his life and not worry about a deep fryer. Or an oven,” Byrdak said. “I went to Twitter last night to try to have people help me, but a lot of people said they wanted to throw him in a KFC bucket. That wasn’t funny.”