Your Dad Falls for Jeff Pa22an Twitter Account Again

As Twins Territory waits to see how the team approaches potential bullpen and rotation upgrades before Monday’s trade deadline, your dad once again was fooled by a fake MLB insider social media account. In a series of texts from Thursday afternoon, your dad made it clear he’d once again been tricked by a Twitter account pretending to be ESPN baseball analyst Jeff Passan.

“tHAT [sic] ESPN goof with the big ears said Twins got Otani [sic],” read the first text. As you were busy at work, you didn’t respond immediately. Ten minutes later, a second text came in saying, “He said it was for Bukton [sic] straight up, you hearing this?” 

A brief check of social media and ESPN confirmed that no such deal was in the works, but a quick search of Twitter showed that an account called @jeffpa22an with 37 followers had posted the fake trade rumor on Thursday morning.

You texted that this was a fake social media account, and further explained the move made no sense on account of Ohtani’s salary, Buxton’s injury, and a host of other reasons.

“Are you sure? I saw it on my phone, and that passant [sic] is pretty reliable,” read your dad’s response. 

As you sighed loud enough for your co-worker Ashley to look over her cubicle wall to make sure you were OK, you repeated that it was a fake Jeff Passan account, similar to the fake Adam Schefter account that fooled your dad into thinking the Vikings were playing their home games in the Fargodome this year because of structural flaws at US Bank Stadium.

“OK,” read your dad’s response. “I guess the cheap Pohlands [sic] wouldn’t of made that deal anyways. LOL.”

You set your phone down, went back to work, and remembered that time your mom gave the phone scammer her social security and checking account routing numbers.

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