Little leaguers help rescue owl

The Dodgers Little Leaguers at Rutenberg Park in south Fort Myers have an unlikely new mascot.

And, to the best of their knowledge, it had big yellow eyes and a heck of a grip.

During a pre-season practice, Kenny Hernandez, 12, was hitting baseballs at the park’s batting cages.

The balls whizzed past his bat a few times and when he went to retrieve them, something jumped under the batting cages netting.

“I was batting and I saw something jump,” Kenny said, adding that he then ran for his coach Steve Belcher and parent Steve Wetter. “It had big yellow eyes.”

The coaches ran over and discovered that the jumping animal was a ground owl that had somehow trapped itself in the nets.

What baffled the coach and players most was that the owl had to have flown in through a small break in the tightly woven and tried to escape and got stuck.

They knew they had to rescue it.

“The more we tried to get it freed ... the more it struggled and just gripped to everything,” said Wetter adding that they had to use gloves and a pocket knife to cut the bird loose.

Cutting the bird loose was difficult because the owl, which has been nicknamed Dodger Blue, was resisting.

“He was fussing around ... an owl doesn’t want to be touched,” said Brian Batiz, the assistant coach of the Dodgers who was present the day of the rescue.

The owl was eventually freed and the players cheered the bird on as it flew into the air and disappeared.

It hasn’t been seen since.

But the experience was one many of the players haven’t forgotten.

Josh Schneider, 12, said it was a unique experience to come for practice and leave with a good story.

“I was the next in line and all I saw were big yellow eyes,” he said.

Schneider’s brother Jake, 10, was happy to see that the owl didn’t sustain any injuries.

But, Julius Forbes, 11, and Jacob Wetter, 10, put it best.
“I felt good that we saved it and we got to see it fly away,”they said.