The Dog Frisbee Pioneer
(via Neatorama) IT WAS THE TOP OF THE EIGHTH. The Los Angeles Dodgers were pla}dng the Cincinnati Reds in a game being nationally broadcast by NBC on August 5, 1974. Alex Stein, a scruffy 19-year-old clad in shorts and a T-shirt, walked from the parking lot into the ballpark with a dog following a few feet behind him. A few moments later, with the guard’s attention drifting elsewhere, the dog joined Stein and settled in under his seat. Stein watched the changeover as the Dodgers came up to bat. Then, just as the game was about to resume, he ran down 26 steps to the retaining wall that separated the seats from the field, stopped, and tossed a Frisbee 40 yards. The dog, named Ashley Whippet, bounded over the 3-foot wall and sunk his teeth into the Frisbee before it could touch the ground. The animal seemed to linger in the air like Jordan off the rim, his muscled hind legs propelling him skyward. The crowd roared, and as cameras trained their lenses on the spectacle, the outfielders sat down on the grass and watched.
