Yu Darvish, Starting Pitcher for the Texas Rangers, Just Did Something Awesome for a Pit Bull

Every year, six to eight million animals enter U.S. shelters, but only around half ever get adopted. Life in an animal shelter can be understandably terrifying for dogs as their days are filled with loud noises, strange people constantly walking by, and no human to call their own.

But starter pitcher for the Texas Rangers, Yu Darvish decided to do something to help by adopting a dog before she even had a chance to go to an animal shelter!

Yu saw a retweet on Twitter from Emily Jones, the dugout reporter on Rangers television, during one of his off days from playing. The tweet by Larry Skywalker was to help out a friend, Karly Edington.

Karly is a receptionist at a veterinary clinic and several months ago a woman brought a dog named Sage into the clinic after finding her homeless on the streets.

“You could tell something was wrong. The dog’s stomach was hanging out,” Karly said explained to Sports Day. Sage had a breast mass that had ruptured and was rushed into surgery. Karly raised money to pay for the emergency surgery. After Sage healed, there was nowhere for her to go so Karly took her home where she lived with her own Pit Pull, Rosemary. Unfortunately, Sage didn’t take well to apartment life and Karly worked tirelessly to find Sage a new home before taking her to the animal shelter.

The original tweet read, “This sweet girl goes to the pound tomorrow if she’s not adopted. Anyone wanna adopt? Helping out a friend. RT if you can.” 

After seeing the tweet, Yu and his people made calls. Then Yu went drove to East Dallas, where Karly lives to meet Sage. It was love at first sight and Yu brought her back home. Just goes to show the power of social media!

 The starter pitcher already had five dogs but he couldn’t say no to Sage and her big bunny ears.

Here she is soaking up the sunshine at her new house.

Sage now has lots of new dog friends, as well as loving parents. Yu said before a recent baseball game, “I thought, ‘What would happen to the dog if no one picked her up?’” Wow, what a hero!

Thank you, Yu! We love reading amazing stories of compassion such as this one. If you feel inspired after reading this story, you can make a difference in the lives of homeless animals, just like Sage, simply by volunteering.

Organizations rely heavily on volunteers to assist with animal care and day-to-day operations. There’s never a shortage of things to do and opportunities are available for people of every skill set. You can help take dogs for walks, give them food and water, and make sure their area is clean. If your preference is helping out behind the scenes, you can volunteer your services by assisting with fundraisers, outreach events or general office tasks. And please, always adopt and never shop!

Image source: Larry Skywalker, Yu Darvish/Twitter