Defiant pigeon meets its match from Rangers’ bird whisperer manager

A hard ground ball off the bat of Rougned Odor in the fourth inning Monday wasn’t enough to make a defiant pigeon fly to safety from the infield dirt at Angel Stadium.

Maybe the bird liked its seat between first and second base. It definitely didn’t take any grief from umpires.

But it met its match from the manager called “Banny,” an obvious play off his last name that when shortened isn’t far removed from a kind of rooster — the banty rooster.

Texas Rangers manager Jeff Banister picked up the pigeon during the middle of the fourth inning and disappeared into the dugout tunnel with it after it had refused to vacate the infield to the safety of a wire or ledge.

Banister wasn’t going to harm the bird. He sought help from ballpark employees, who also didn’t want PETA coming after them.

“It seemed like there were a few guys out there afraid to pick the pigeon up,” Banister said. “But I will tell everybody that the pigeon was safe. We handed it off, and they took it outside and set it free.”

First baseman Mike Napoli had tried to move bird along. Umpire Gary Cedestrom did the same thing with little success. The only thing he did was coax the bird into move toward the visiting dugout, where Banister was waiting.

He calmly bent over, cupped both hands around the bird, picked it up and got moving.

Banister looked like a natural.

“It takes a lot to save a pigeon,” he said. “Remember the nickname. I’ve caught a few birds in my life. That’s all I’m going to say about that.”

This story was originally published August 22, 2017 at 8:20 AM with the headline "Defiant pigeon meets its match from Rangers’ bird whisperer manager."