On the night before the 1950 LSU-Tulane game in New Orleans, where Mike the Tiger was to appear, he and his caretaker visited Ye Olde College Inn on Carrollton Avenue around 1:00 AM. Already inside were four Tulane students named Norbert James, Oscar Riess, Joe Miller, and Tex Powell, who had stopped in for a midnight snack after a few hours of coon hunting.

When they left, they noticed a trailer in the parking lot with a long cage on it. Inside was Mike I, so they thought it would be a hoot to catnap him. "We thought there would be some security, but the wheels were not locked," an 84-year-old Norbert told the Macon Telegraph newspaper in January 2012. "So I undid the trailer and hooked it up to Oscar's car. He didn't have a trailer hitch, so we used a chain."

They drove Mike I to the Tulane campus in Riess's 1942 Plymouth. At one point, the chain came loose and the cage kept rolling. Then a police officer stopped them, but they convinced him they were escorting the tiger front the LSU campus to Tulane's stadium.

The plan was to hold Mike I captive until halftime of the game the next day. But when John Stibbs - Tulane's dean of students - was summoned to see Mike I, who had been hidden by his kidnappers behind some barracks on campus, he told them Mike I should be taken to a safe place off campus.

James and Riess drove to Riess's house, parked the cage in the garage, and went to bed. Riess's father woke up at 2:00 AM and asked his son to go outside and see why the dogs were barking. "Because there is atiger in the garage," his son explained.

"Have you been drinking?" asked his dad before the entire Riess family rushed out of bed to see the tiger.

Several hours later, the police showed up at Riess's house and took in James and Riess for questioning. They weren't arrested and went to eat breakfast before the game, which ended in a 14-14 tie.

The following paragraphs are from the Baton Rouge Advocate the day after the game:

Present in all his splendor was Mike the tiger, mascot, who was stolen last night by a group of Tulanians from his Tiger guards. Mike was held in custody by Tulane for 12 hours or more but about 11:30 a. m. was returned to his LSU custodians. None the worse for his experience, Mike attended the game as usual in his cage with only a few traces of green paint on the sides of his cage to indicate his adventure. Olive and blue streamers which also decorated the cage during the hours it was hidden at an uptown garage had been removed. Dr. John H. Stibbs, director of student life at Tulane, turned the mascot over to a committee of LSU students, who in turn placed the tiger under the stadium with a heavy guard surrounding the cage.

As Mike was pulled onto the playing field this afternoon minutes before the kickoff, a mighty roar from LSU fans greeted him. A cordon of New Orleans police surrounded the trailer and cage, remaining on duty through the game.

Across the stadium atop the Tulane student section, a giant sign in olive and blue proclaimed to the world that Mike's ransom was a Tulane victory - a victory, incidentally, which failed to materialize.