Major League Baseball

Fish falls from sky on Nationals

Published Feb. 15, 2013 12:00 a.m. ET

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Is this Mike Trout sending a message to second-year compatriot Bryce Harper, ala mob bosses of old? Or are the ospreys in Florida unhappy about the way the Nationals finished last season?

Motive is hard to judge in this case, but at least this much is known: A bird flying over the Washington Nationals’ spring training practice Thursday in Viera, Fla., dropped a fish onto the field.

The bird appeared to be an osprey carting its dinner home, and after it lost the food, it began circling the field. Denard Span and Brad Horn started making noises to keep the bird from coming back for its supper.

“I was kind of squealing a little bit,” Horn said, according to The Washington Post. “I kept thinking, that’s his dinner. That’s his food. As I was looking down at the fish, I didn’t want him to think that I was trying to take his dinner and have the bird come from behind me or come from the sky and try to attack me.”

Span was more concerned with the bird’s fielding.

“I’ll tell you what, that bird definitely didn’t have good hands,” he said. “He dropped his dinner.”

Span was happy to see teammate Ian Desmond, who knows a bit about fishing and identified the fallen fellow as a crappie, pick up the fish and chuck it over a nearby fence.

“I’m scared of fish, scared of birds,” Span said. “The only thing I’m not scared of is probably, like, an ant or something like that. I don’t know what it is. I don’t like to get my hands dirty, other than clay and dirt.”

The Nats should be safer once they head back north after spring training — although, if the fish-dropping bird follows, perhaps they can call on the Cardinals’ rally squirrel to help with cleanup.

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