Oh, I'm THAT guy, baby

By Brandon Martin
Web dominator

Hey, do you ever wonder who the guy is that makes up all those trade rumors? Do you ever get mad at him? Do you wonder why he does it? Well, today’s your lucky day because “that guy” is me.

Yep, I’m THAT guy. I’m the guy with “sources in the front office.” I’m the guy that you can “believe or not believe.” I have many names. I might be “Scoops” or “SuperBrad” or “imb!”, but you know how to pick me out. I’m the guy that starts the threads that end up being 200 pages long. I’m also the guy that got you to turn on ESPN and watch the ticker for 25 minutes looking to see if your favorite team really did get Chad Cordero for two AA outfielders. I’m the guy that got you to go to five or six websites trying to find confirmation. I’m the guy that got you to listen to that jerk on sports radio hoping against hope that he’d have some breaking news. Guess what, I can save you the time. The trade isn’t happening. But you knew that and you wasted your time anyway. Just like you’ll know it’s not true the next time and you’ll do the same thing. Second verse, same as the first. You just got burned by me again, sucker.

You act as if you don’t like me. You groan. You make some stupid little eye-rolling smiley faces (what are you? a 13-year-old girl?) in your reply when you see another thread of mine. You immediately call it ridiculous. If you hate my trade rumors so much, then why do you spend the next four days thinking about it, dissecting it, debating it, and proposing new ones? Go ahead and make your pithy little comments. Because I know the dirty little secret is that you like when my “sources” share some top secret trade rumblings. You get off on it, actually. But, don’t worry, pal. Your secret’s safe with me. (wink, wink)

So, why do I do it? If you’d ever had something you made up on the crapper one day receive 200 pages of discussion on some team’s fanboy messageboard or heard some radio hack mention it on air or read an article in which some beleaguered GM had to address it for the 20th time in a 48 hour span to a bunch of sweaty reporters, then you wouldn’t ask that question. The rewards are obvious.

So, instead of pretending to hate me, just enjoy me, trolls. Because I’m not going away anytime soon.

OH, by the way, did you hear that the Braves just swooped in and literally blew Beane away with an offer for Joe Blanton AND Huston Street? It’s all very hush-hush right now, but the players involved are being contacted by their teams that they’ll more than likely be on the move within the next couple of days.

That one’s a freebie.

Sometimes, it’s just too easy.