Javelinas in Tucson…
This morning at around 8:00 am shortly after completing my urine sample in the clubhouse, there was a topic of conversation that broke out at the breakfast table. A few guys (Brooks Brown, Clay Zavada, Hector Ambriz, Tony Barnette) were discussing a javelina sighting near their apartments the night before. For those of you who don’t know what a javelina is, think of Pumba in the disney movie “The Lion King” with jet, coarse, black hair that smells like garbage.
These fugly beasts typically travel in packs, roaming around the desert at night trying to salvage a few crumbs of food wherever they can find it. I know from a previous experience in my college years that “pumba” loves to dig through trash. Quick story, there was one night my freshman year where my roommate and I forgot about some trash we left on the porch. Little did I know this would come back to haunt us. Totally forgetting about the 8-10 trashbags we had put out, I became startled at about 3:00 am. My first thought was that there were people outside of my place havin’ a little party on our patio. As I approached the sliding glass door to open the blinds I realized what I was dealing with was a little different. There was a group of large and small black pigs ransacking through our garbage that we had forgot about that day. I flipped on the porch light thinking they would go away…they didn’t. So me being the tough guy I am, decided to march out in my underwear with a butter knife trying to scare these weird creatures away, after all I had no idea what they were. They barely flinched, maybe because their eyesight is terrible, or maybe because they had never seen a terrified human attack them half naked holding an intimidating butter knife. After my charge, I gave up, I let them have my trash.
I just thought everyone would like to know a little javelina story. Especially for those of you who aren’t lucky enough to be living among them. Thankfully, I was the lucky recipient of an encounter with these dirty pigs that I will never forget. What a great start to my blog, I will actually begin posting entries that are relevant to baseball here shortly. Thank you, and have a great day. Diamondback Dan out.
Please feel free to comment on your javelina stories, or anything else for that matter.
Bloggin' with D-back Dan 
Hey Dan – Welcome to MLBlogs! You’re a long way from Alaska! I look forward to following your season!
Julia
http://werbiefitz.mlblogs.com
Hey Dan,
Best wishes this year from Dave and Joey. It was great having you in South Bend and seeing you pitch.
Expect to see your Silver Hawks Jersey arrive at your next location for your signature. 🙂
Dave
Welcome to the Majors, Dan! I know we’re all anxious to see you in action for the Diamondbacks!
Your javalina story reminds me of every Halloween out at my house. See, I live WAY out in the easy valley, practically in the no-man’s-land beyond the city boundary of Mesa. Every year, my siblings and I carve pumpkins for Halloween and set them out on our front porch to delight and scare the trick-or-treaters. And every year, like clockwork, the javalinas come in the dead of All Hallow’s Eve night and chow down on the tasty tubers. In fact, they’re so precise, we sometimes stay up late to watch them trickle in from the mountains and the desert because we know when they’ll show up! Thankfully, they’ve never come early, so our pumpkins are always safe until the wee morning hours of November!
On another side note, those things are kind of mean! Don’t EVER cross a Mama javalina unless you want to get chased down the street and have to jump into a neighbor’s truck bed to escape the sharp-tusked beast! Not that I’ve ever experienced that or anything…!
Good luck this year, can’t wait to read more about your adventures!