Tony La Russa's ARF

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa loves animals, so we're going to root for the Cards this year.

During a 1990 baseball game between the Oakland A's and the Yankees, a stray cat wandered onto the playing field. Tony, then the Manager of the A's, captured the feline and after the game tried to place it with a local shelter. To his dismay, Tony discovered there was not a single No-Kill facility in the East Bay region of San Fran and that the cat would be euthanized. So, he and his wife, Elaine, named the cat "Evie" and found a home for her.

But that didn't end Tony's efforts. His experience with this cat was the genesis for the founding of Rescue Foundation (ARF), a No-Kill organization dedicated to bringing people and animals together to enrich each other's lives.

Pop star Peter Cetera and actor Kevin Pollak recently joined Tony at a star-studded event to raise money for ARF, which has grown to 1,800 pet adoptions a year. By the end of the evening, ARF had raised $200,000 to benefit the care and shelter of homeless animals.

Read more about the celebrity pet event on InsideBayArea.com. Find out more about ARF at http://www.arf.net/. And if you'd like to donate the pet organization that Tony founded, click here.