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.

I am the greatest message board poster ever

By Brandon Martin
Web dominator

I am a god, quite simply. Much like Rodney Carney is a physical freak, I am likewise a freak. Have you encountered me before? Have you felt my wrath? Have you met my tart tongue, my wily wit and my scintillating sarcasm? Have you been burned by my carefully researched points and my perfectly-constructed arguments?

If not, you are in for a treat. For I am BMart77, the greatest message board poster ever.

Sure, you may scoff at that claim. It's possible you've never seen my work -- though I bet you've heard of it. The infamous Jessica Simpson vs. Britney Spears argument on gorillamask.net. The 2004 NFL draft analysis on the scout.com boards. The Hee Seop Choi debate on nsbb.com. Those were all mine. The work of a living legend. Tears were shed, wrists were slit, children were conceived as a result of these epic spectacles.

I was schooled early in the Internet's existence. I honed my lethal tactics on the Alamak.com chat rooms, shooting down poseur theories and bucking conventional wisdom. I graduated from there to Yahoo! newsgroups, where I took on all comers. My skills were increasing at an alarming rate and the masses quickly learned my handle. So often, a thread would grow to several pages, with both sides bantering back and forth. Then I would appear, much like aurochs stampeding across the plains, devastating anything in their path, and end all possible debate.

You will never see me cheapen a post with emoticons. Each word is precious, and I do not need to accentuate my prose with such pithy symbols. If I see a poster use an emoticon, I make a mental note that they are weak, and I shall crush their will at a later date. God help your soul if I come across one of these things in your post. The ensuing evisceration will remove your will to live, I promise you that much.

Consider my carefully chosen handle: BMart77. It's simple -- my self-prescribed nickname and the year of my birth -- but it identifies me. It is not boring, yet it also is not silly, like so many other message board handles. If I see a name like TruffleShuffleMonster, I know you are a silly bitch who will one day be a target of my ire. And rest assured, that day is coming sooner rather than later.

I use the quote function of the message board flawlessly. Some posters fail to realize the value of brevity and allow themselves to quote six or seven posts that stack on top of one another. Please. How will the other posters know exactly which sentence you plan to blow apart in a blaze of bombastic glory? My secret is to quote each line individually, and painstakingly evaporate any notion of common sense from your stupid, banal attempts at debate one at a time.

Fools.

I am in my element in these portals. Whether you want to argue the latest movies, politics, hipster music (Wilco is the greatest band ever, bar none, no contest about it, end of story, shut up right now) or sports, I will win. It won't even be close.

Roger Clemens the best pitcher of this era? Please. I have spreadsheets that will prove you wrong. And I know the code to post them, with formatting still intact.

Best Jewish athlete ever? Give me Sandy Koufax and try to prove me wrong.

Best way to grill a steak? The Better Homes and Garden people know what happens when you bring up that topic.

Is Scarface better than Godfather? Obviously you know my answer, and if you think the Godfather is better, then you are just a troll. And I don't feed the trolls.

So if you feel like challenging me, step into the ring, punk. I'll take you on any time, on any board you can think of. Just look for the name BMart77, and the scores of weeping simpletons who have tried to overtake me, and were strewn aside like a single, solitary ant on a picnic table.

I'll be waiting for you.