Some experts believe the Chicago Cubs now have the best farm system in all of baseball. So I decided to see how much those who bleed Cubbie blue really know about the blue chip prospects who might be headed to Wrigley Field one day. I anagrammed a view names and gave each fake name a faux biography as well. All we need now is a fake drivers license topfakeid to go with the made up backstory and you have a whole new just created persona!
Then I teamed up with the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye edition for a typical man on the street piece outside of Wrigley. The results were even better than I expected. One fan even claims to have seen the non-existent prospect play in person.
Here’s a sample of the reaction we got from a few Cubs fans:
“I heard he’s really doing well down in AA ball.”
“The fact that we’re talking about him right now, speaks volumes. There’s thousands of them out there, but he’s the one we’re talking about.”
“he’s going to be a badass”
“If you can be that guy who’s from Chicago, to play here in Chicago and win a championship in Chicago, that’s where it’s at.” — on the fake player who I gave a local origin backstory too.
Here’s the vid:
Here are the anagrams. Special thanks to @MattLindner
Phrase: NOT REAL
Name: Ron Leta
Position: P, 6-4, 220
Hometown/college: Galveston, Texas, Northwestern University
Phrase: JUST PLAYING
Name: Jason Yatung
Position: P, 6-1, 260
Hometown/college: Fort Myers, Fla./drafted directly out of Fort Myers High School
Phrase: DOES NOT EXIST
Name: Don Essex III
Position: OF, 6-2, 160
Hometown/college: Naperville, /drafted directly out of Naperville Central High School
Phrase: FAKE NAME
Name: Mark Faea
Position: 2B, 5-9, 178
Hometown/college: Mission Viejo, Calif., UC-Santa Barbara
Phrase: FOOLED YOU
Name: Doug Yelouf
Position: P, 6-6, 235
Hometown/college: Santa Claus, Ind., Vanderbilt
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports and Yahoo! He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world. Banks has been featured in numerous media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, NBC, CBS, the History Channel and more. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)