Diamondbacks’ Zac Gallen Bizarrely Hits Bird With Warmup Pitch

Arizona bolstered its reputation as the most dangerous team in sports to birds.

If Diamondbacks fans had a nickel for every time one of their pitchers has hit a bird this century, they would have two nickels — which, to steal from Disney Channel show Phineas and Ferb, isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.

Arizona pitcher Zac Gallen was warming up pregame for the Diamondbacks’ game against the Athletics Wednesday afternoon, in advance of his next scheduled start against the Pirates on Friday. The session ended abruptly, however, when the two-time Cy Young top-10 finisher snapped off his curveball and struck a bird.

The news was delivered with the appropriate solemnity on the Bally Sports Arizona broadcast, with a broadcaster stating, “The bird is no longer with us. I know Zac Gallen took some time to recognize that, but he hit it with a curveball midair, mid-flight, and our cameras caught it.”

Zac Gallen really hit a bird with a curveball. pic.twitter.com/T6XOZudoMH

— Bally Sports Arizona (@BALLYSPORTSAZ) May 17, 2023

Immediate parallels were drawn between Gallen’s indiscretion and Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson’s 2001 destruction of a dove with his trademark fastball. Johnson obliterated the feathered friend on March 24, 2001, during a spring training game against the Giants in Tucson.