Jeff Passan
ESPNMLBBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Move over, KatyPerrysBootyHole and wetbutt23, we have a new surprising insider in the Chicago baseball scene. That would be Cubs’ fan @Lisa_L_Dubbs on Twitter/X, or more specifically, her unnamed friend. On Thursday, Lisa replied to an @obvious_shirts post about the Cubs’ first spring training game Friday with a question about why there was no online coverage of the team signing free agent center fielder Cody Bellinger, which she’d heard of through a friend at spring training:

There was nothing online about that at that point because no one had yet reported it. And that prompted some skepticism. (And a funny reply from Lisa of the Homer Simpson backing into bushes GIF.) But, three days later, in the early hours of Sunday morning, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that the Cubs had indeed finalized a deal to bring Bellinger back:

And Passan followed that up with a funny acknowledgement of Lisa’s tweet from Thursday:

Some people got the reference:

But many did not:

Of course, this tweet coming Thursday doesn’t mean that the deal was actually done then. There may still have been details for the sides to finalize, which would explain why it wasn’t reported in a more conventional way until Sunday. (It is also possible that the deal was actually agreed to Thursday and the sides wanted to keep it quiet and unofficial until Sunday for some reason.)

But this is still interesting to see. And this definitely can happen; there are plenty of tidbits dropped by executives, agents, players and more that just happen to be overheard by those in the right place at the right time. And if those who hear it can get it out there themselves, or through their friends, that can even lead to a Jeff Passan acknowledgement.

And this adds to the list of MLB news put out there by unconventional insiders, from the aforementioned KatyPerrysBootyHole and wetbutt23 (Reddit users who broke the cross-Chicago Jose Quintana trade in 2017) to Marcus Stroman (who announced his signing with the Cubs in 2021 before any reporter could) to Braves’ fan Brian Chandler seeing Yasiel Puig outside an Atlanta hotel in July 2020 and connecting the dots. Now, @Lisa_L_Dubbs has joined those ranks. Congrats to Lisa and her friend on beating the world to the news of Bellinger’s return.

[Jeff Passan on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz