These are our cats, Jeter and A-Rod. We got them on St. Patrick’s Day in 2006 from the Animal Humane Society of Hennepin County. We had been catless since our previous cat, Ponce, died three months before. We got to the Humane Society right when it opened, and a new litter of three-month-old kitties was in a cage, waiting to be adopted. They were the only kitties available, so a lot of people were crowded around the cage. The kitties had Irish names—Karen, Kiki, Sean, Conan, and Marge—and someone got Karen right away. We then got the one with the white paws and white chest and Sean written on his collar. They let us take him into one of the adoption rooms, and we all hit it off right away. At that point Sean became Jeter. We decided to see if we could get another kitty, so I went back out to the cage. One other family had its eye on the long-hair named Kiki and got her, leaving Conan, a sandy-haired male, and Marge, a black-and-white female. I took Conan back to the adoption room, and he quickly became A-Rod.

Left: Two happy people—Brenda and Jeter hit it off. Right: Jeter and A-Rod wait in their holding cage. In the middle cage is their sister Kiki, and in the cage at the right is their sister Karen. Their other sister, Marge, was also adopted by the time we left.

More pictures of Jeter and A-Rod are available below and by clicking here.

In August of 2006, the cats got to meet their New York Yankees namesakes, Derek Jeter (about to homer against the Los Angeles Angels) and Alex Rodriguez (homering against the Seattle Mariners).

Jeter and A-Rod were two-and-a-half pounds each when we got them, but they grew quickly. By mid-summer, they were both more than 10 pounds. They have the markings of tabby cats, and Brenda, after a little research, found out that Jeter is probably a Maine Coon. Among other things, this means he will end up between 13 and 18 pounds. He exhibits some other characteristics of the Maine Coon (often called a Maine Shag with cats who aren’t brown), including huge paws and a singing quality when he purrs.

Left: Jeter at the vet. Right: A-Rod tries to break in to the automatic food dispenser.

A-Rod died Saturday morning, August 27, 2011. He was fine when Brenda left to go out with a friend. I got up soon after and saw A-Rod lying on his side at the top of the steps on the second floor. It didn’t look like a natural pose for him, so I went over and could tell he had died. We had an autopsy (or whatever they call it for cats) done. He died of acute heart failure. Apparently it was a chronic condition. Sounds like the guy just had a bad ticker. We took Jeter to a kitty cardiologist and had an echo cardiogram done to make sure he didn’t have a similar problem. The good news is he has a healthy heart.

The following Wednesday, Sarah Johnson, a friend, adopted a cat, Calhoun (left), in A-Rod’s memory. “Our local ASPCA had an event where they had too many adult cats and so they waived all adoption fees,” Sarah said. “I thought there was no better was to honor your loss than to rescue someone who was inches away from the chopping block.”

Click here to see our former cat, Ponce.

Click here to see Mickey, whom we got after A-Rod died.

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