Six people were involved in saving Oriole’s life. Cole Irvin was the first.
Oriole, a 3-week-old kitten, is now in an incubator in a rescue and adoption program, but less than a week ago, he was roaming a gas station in Greensboro, North Carolina, looking for help.
“I knew something was wrong with him,” said Irvin, a pitcher in the Orioles organization who is now with Triple-A Norfolk. “I knew this cat was hungry and not comfortable. I just felt horrible.”
It was Sunday evening, and Irvin had just pitched for the Tides in Norfolk, Virginia. The team’s next destination was Charlotte, North Carolina, where Irvin’s offseason house is located. Irvin got permission to head south early so he could spend a day off at home, and he was about four hours into a five-hour drive when he stopped for gas and rescued the kitten.
Irvin and five others served as the village that saved Oriole. Irvin called his wife, who told her mother, who wrote a Facebook post looking for someone to help. A local woman saw the post and took in the kitten, her husband cared for him overnight, and then a friend, the founder of a cat rescue nonprofit in Davidson, North Carolina, has taken care of him since, naming the gray tabby cat “Oriole” for the baseball player who was the first to save his life.
“He could have easily walked away,” said Roni LaBarbera, the founder of Cats of Davidson, a rescue and adoption nonprofit, about Irvin. “But the fact that he took time out of his day to save this little life, that’s amazing. That speaks volumes about the type of man he is.”
Irvin didn’t know exactly what was wrong with Oriole when he saw the kitten at the gas station. He spent more than half an hour looking for his mom or a litter of kittens. Once he couldn’t find one, he put a sweatshirt in a bag, placed him in there and called his wife, Kristen Beat, to determine what to do.
“I just knew the cat was sick,” Irvin said. “You could tell it wasn’t in the best shape and that it was really young. I knew it needed help. It was meowing, but it was such a heartbreaking meow. I just felt so bad for the kitten. It was helpless, and there was no question that I was going to help.”
LaBarbera said Oriole was severely malnourished — weighing just 190 grams, or less than half a pound — and was suffering from pneumonia and an eye infection. At first, he didn’t have enough strength to suck on a bottle and needed formula dripped into his mouth.
“He wouldn’t have lived the night or the next day,” she said. “He was very, very thin. He would not have made it. There was no way.”
Oriole, whose white paws and belly are surrounded by gray fur, is still in the incubator — a climate-controlled environment to help him heal — but LaBarbera said “he’s doing amazing” and is up to 330 grams.
“He’s a different kitty from when we first got him,” LaBarbera said.” Every day he’s a little feistier.”
After Irvin and his wife tried to find someone they knew in the Greensboro area who could take the cat, he decided he was going to keep the kitten overnight and take him to an animal shelter the following morning. But 20 minutes into his drive and after he left the gas station, Irvin’s mother-in-law found someone through Facebook who would foster the cat for the night.
“I just happened to open up Facebook, and that was the first thing on my feed,” Lisa Archetti said. “I’ve fostered kittens in the past, and I didn’t want the kitten getting into the wrong hands. I agreed to take it knowing one of the rescue [organizations] would pick it up.”
Irvin dropped the cat off at Archetti’s house in Cornelius, North Carolina, at around 10 p.m. and her husband, David, helped care for the cat overnight, waking up every two hours to feed it.
Archetti, who has fostered animals for the past six years, said Irvin and Beat have “hearts of gold” for taking the initiative to save Oriole.
“I just love the fact that he couldn’t leave it there,” Archetti, 48, said. “I just wish other people would be as socially responsible for taking care of vulnerable, helpless animals. This kitten absolutely would have died. He wouldn’t have survived out there. Cole saved a life. I just wish everybody had that heart. The world would be a nicer place, and there’d be less animals suffering.”
Irvin, a 29-year-old left-handed pitcher who opened the season with the Orioles but was optioned to Triple-A earlier this month, said he’s always been passionate about animals, but he credits Beat for encouraging him to use his platform to help animals in need. All four of their dogs — three Yorkshire terriers and one Yorkie-cattle mix — are rescues, as is their horse.
“I’ve always had a love for animals, but it wasn’t until I met Kristen that I fully dumped my heart and soul into it. She has been the inspiration behind my love and my philanthropy in helping animals,” Irvin said. “Whenever I see one in need, my heart breaks. An animal can mean so much in a person’s life. Seeing an animal happy and another human happy because of that animal really brings you a lot of joy.”
The following morning, the Archettis gave the kitten to LaBarbera, who founded Cats of Davidson alongside Amy Doughten three years ago. What started as a “grassroots community effort” sprung into a nonprofit organization that has cared for hundreds of cats with dozens of volunteers and foster families. LaBarbera said the program relies on donations, which can be made on Venmo @CatsofDavidsonNC.
Lucky for Oriole, Cats of Davidson had just spent $1,400 on an incubator that he desperately needed.
“Last year, we fundraised for this incubator for our sickest, littlest kitties,” said LaBarbera, 56 of Davidson. “We just got it, and Oriole is our first resident.”
The kitten will remain with LaBarbera until he’s healthy enough to go to a foster family and then be put up for adoption. Even then, he’ll always have the name “Oriole.”
“The fact that they named it ‘Oriole’ was pretty cool,” Irvin said. “A lot of what me and my wife do, we don’t look for any recognition. That’s not why we do it. We do it because we love animals. I’m just glad that it got help.
“But it’s cool that it’s named ‘Oriole.’ What a fitting name for a fighting boy cat.”
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