Social media is everything. This is why every Major League Baseball team has invested resources on platforms like Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. Now, while the world just cannot function the way we’re used to, it’s up to these social media accounts to keep fans into game. On Wednesday, the Chicago Cubs Twitter account did just that.
Something you see a lot of these teams do is create custom desktop wallpaper jerseys, and this week it was the Cubs’ turn to pull out this gimmick. Their tweet made its way to my feed and I instantly thought of one thing. Well, not a thing, but a person.
That person is the very young and very elite Gleyber Torres. It wouldn’t hurt to throw out a Gleyber, I thought. Another thought I had is they’d never bite on that.
Here is their original tweet with my response:
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) May 13, 2020
Torres, 25, home
— Joe Randazzo🗽(Bronx Pinstripes crew) (@Yankeelibrarian) May 13, 2020
Not too long after I got a notification on my phone. It was from the Chicago Cubs. I did that neck tilt that dogs do when they see something they don’t understand. I didn’t know why the Cubs were tweeting at me. Then I remembered why. The idea of them getting back to me was so farfetched that I had begun deleting it from my memory bank.
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) May 13, 2020
It was such a stupid troll. I had no idea it would work and I laughed more than I needed to. I just couldn’t believe they would do that.
Now look, I get it. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series in 2016. They broke a 100-year drought. Everyone talks about how this was the deal that sealed the World Series for them and they would make this trade ten times out of ten. (Hold on, would you really?) All of that aside, there is something so great about Brian Cashman being able to sway Theo Epstein out of one of baseball’s top prospects at the time. A top prospect, who, in the end, has the same type of genetic makeup as a certain former captain.
GLEYBER DAY IS EVERY DAY
Here’s a reminder from Statcast how the Yankees got Gleyber Torres, by the way.
07/25/2016: New York Yankees traded LHP Aroldis Chapman to Chicago Cubs for RHP Adam Warren, SS Gleyber Torres, RF Billy McKinney and OF Rashad Crawford.
In case you need one more reminder, here is what happened to Chapman just a few short months later:
12/15/2016: New York Yankees signed free agent LHP Aroldis Chapman.
I’m sure whoever runs that account doesn’t understand the nuances of Gleyber Torres going to the Yankees. They’re probably just some young person out of college who was qualified for the position but weren’t actually fans of the Cubs. (Or maybe they were a White Sox fan who enjoyed the purging of the Cubs’ minor league system. Remember they acquired Eloy Jimenez from them.)
Still, it was funny to see how easy that was. I tried doing Yordan Alverez with the Dodgers but that was unfortunately a no-go. They either didn’t see it (probably that) or just ignored it. (They probably don’t care enough to even consider ignoring it.) I do plan on attempting more of these. If people didn’t cry about names on the back of Yankee jerseys and the Yankees did this, I’d probably request Jay Buhner.
