It started as a genuinely funny coincidence: a guy named Dan "Big Cat" Katz won the Cubs Charities 50/50 raffle at Wrigley Field, and the jumbotron treated it like a moon landing. Except this Big Cat is THE Big Cat, co-host of Pardon My Take, and the internet noticed immediately. The check read $54,035, made out in giant novelty letters, and Big Cat stood there waving with both hands like he'd just won a pennant instead of a raffle.
Big Cat gets his 50-50 big check from the Cubs
The clip ripped through Barstool's feeds within minutes, and Big Cat leaned all the way into being a good sport about it. He admitted on Twitter he didn't realize the camera stayed on him that long, joked he regretted not hitting a dab or two while he had the crowd's attention, and clarified he was in fact trying to wave — people just read it as something weirder. But the real story wasn't the wave itself. It was where the money went next.
Big Cat confirmed he donated the raffle winnings, plus more, to Lost Boyz Inc., the Chicago youth baseball and softball nonprofit run by LaVont'e Stewart Sr. that mentors kids on the South and West sides. He'd already given the organization $75,000 last fall, and he used the Wrigley moment to needle Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts to match that number. It's a classic Big Cat move — turn a viral bit into a plug for a cause that actually needed the attention.
Appreciate @CubsCharities having me out for big check day. Donated all the winnings and more to a great cause at @LostBoyzInc @LavontSr last fall. Not to Charity Shame but I still think Ricketts should match my 75k donation to Lost Boyz. @Cubs t.co/90VJnQU6Xy
By the next day the clip had graduated from one-off viral moment to full Pardon My Take bit. Big Cat went on record admitting the wave was probably too much — he said he looked like a moron doing it — and the crew mined it for a full segment during the July 22 show alongside Jimmy Tatro and Ryan Fox. That's usually where these things die down. Instead it kept going.
“Yes I waved too much… I looked like a moron” -Big Cat
Two days after the original check presentation, Mark and Brandon showed up with Big Cat still at Wrigley Field, filming a live update from the outfield seats — proof the bit had officially outlived the news cycle it started in. What began as a five-second jumbotron clip is now a running gag with its own cast of recurring characters, which is about as Barstool as a story gets: a guy wins a raffle, gives away the money to a good cause, and still can't escape getting clowned for waving too hard on a scoreboard.
Update from Mark, Brandon and Big Cat
There's no real end point here — no trade deadline, no injury update, no score to track. It's just a bit that keeps finding new life every time someone on the Barstool roster brings up the wave again. Given how often Big Cat's name is already getting typed into the Cubs' own 50/50 marketing, don't be shocked if the wave outlasts the actual raffle season.