If you're reading this blog, then you are likely knowledgeable enough about baseball to know who Mike Venafro is. If not, here's the scoop: Venafro's a journeyman submarine-thrower who is now pitching in AAA. Basically, one of the many insignificant stories of the major leagues: good, but not good enough.
Myspace.com is somewhere to go to take pictures of yourself, maybe hit on some women, or, in the case of my former self, make joke accounts. Specifically, a joke account about Mike Venafro. I never had a vendetta against the guy, I just thought making an account would be a funny thing to do with the loads of spare time I had in 2005. Just a joke that myself and the sports nerds that I know (most of the other bloggers on this site, specifically) could laugh about.
I didn't check the thing for about a year, and all was normal in Venaspace until this message was sent to me on Sunday night. I was notified by e-mail about it.
From: Lisa
Date: Aug 19, 2007 6:55 PM
Subject: you are a imposter [sic] and a loser
Body: you are a loser 1st and for most [sic]. mike has a family and is just trying to make a living.he is contacting his agent,who is a a lawyer, to see how he can remove your imposter [sic] page and furthermore take you to court for the damages. hope you have a great day. by the way, can you play baseball?
Now, a few notes about this:
1) I'm a loser now, 1st and for most. Glad we got that out of the way.
2) I created this account in November, 2005. If Mike Venafro is only finding out about this now, how much "damage" could I have caused him? If anything, I should be thanked for being one of the few people who know who he is.
3) Who is Lisa? Her page, and her message, tell me nothing about her, other than that she's 29 and likes to use beer bottles to make promiscuous poses.
4) How did Mike find this page anyway? Was he googling himself to see if any papers wrote about the Cardinals giving him a minor league contract?
(Note: I wanted to see if any full stories were printed regarding this signing. I even searched Deadspin, Cardinal haven, to see if he even got a blurb from Will Leitch. Nope. The only thing I found there was a link to this Baseball Musings post from spring training, 2006. Sorry about the back, Mike.)
5) Lisa wants to know if I can play baseball. Is she the captain of a rec league softball team? Can I get in on that?
This whole situation amazes me. Suing a college student whose yearly income is under $3000 is a bit much, I'd say.
So, maybe the mysterious Lisa is bluffing. Maybe not. Maybe Mike Venafro's gonna come after me with a Triple-A vengeance. Updates on this exciting event in my life will come as/if it develops.
UPDATED: Mike Venafro had Tom delete the account. My life, as I know it, is over.
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10 comments:
What you have done is illegal and you can go to jail up to one year for it. If you are learning anything in your community college you probably know what is legal and what is not. Maybe you are spending too much time being an imposter and playing with yourself to know better. I agree with them. YOu are a looser for posting your photo for somebody other than your own. Its is absolutely something characteristic of a looser. Why don't you save yourself the trouble and take it down unless you want to be doing community service for the next year of your life. I am sure there are some highways that have trash next to them. You are already stupid for posting this article. I am sure --small time felon --will not look good on a background check when you are struggling to find your assistant job for 33K a year. Good luck being stupid.
look i'm sorry that i took myspace legals 101 after i made that page, that's just not my fault
it's spelled "loser" and you should really put quotation marks around "small time felon," not hyphens.
things to consider before you make a crack at someone going to community college. especially when they actually go to a top tier school.
Dear Host: When and if you do graduate from your community college or your local neighborhood Information Technology program, you can only dream to become half has successful as Mr. Venafro. I distinguish him as Mr. Venafro because he is a great father of large family and he is one of the best in the world at what he does for a living.
The mere fact that you created an online fantasy account portraying Mr. Venafro proves you envy his successful career. If you didn’t you would not have even wasted your precious adult-film downloading time to create such an account. For you now, to attempt to belittle his latest achievements is quite hypocritical. Perhaps you have homoerotic thoughts about Mr. Venafro? Is that why you created such an account? Many super-fans, possibly like yourself, tend to have serious problem disassociating themselves from their favorite game, team, or athlete. If you fall into this category, you might want to look into scheduling a consultation with the campus counselor (if one is available) to discuss your queer obsession with professional athletes like Mr. Venafro.
Listen, you people need to get over yourselves.
I created that account in 2005 as other friends on this website were creating "celeb" pages for other hacks such as Andrew Ridgeley from Wham! and Oil Can Boyd. It's not like we had this overwhelming envy for the characters, so much as we thought it'd be a good laugh for about a day. And it was.
Almost two years later, this page is found and everyone goes nuts. Why? Is Mike Venafro never gonna get a job in the majors again because of it?
Go search on Myspace for any remotely popular athlete, and you'll find hundreds of pages. The fact that Venafro found one and flipped a shit should say something about his character. I blatantly stated that I had nothing against Mike Venafro. I made an obscure page about an obscure athlete with no bad intentions whatsoever.
Now, based on this, I assume you know Mike, and because of this, feel the need to google him constantly- that's probably how you found this page and the myspace page. Why this constant badgering about him being a "family man?" The page didn't say "Mike Venafro: Professional asshole and future Chris Benoit." Like, what's the deal?
Like, look. If you're really gonna get your panties in a bunch over something I had actually forgotten I did because it's so far in the past, whatever. I'd think you would have better fish to fry with your potentially high-ranking job (maybe something like 40k a year !!!), but if you just want to vanity search your friend and try to berate me on the internet, go right ahead. But go about it differently- I go to a better school (Northeastern) than Mike did (James Madison). You and whichever of your friends posted earlier can keep trying to play this holier-than-thou card. Some people...
Mike, if you're reading this, I'd just like to thank you for your time spent with the 2002 Oakland Athletics.
The Chad Bradford-Mike Venafro right-lefty submarine tandem is a happy memory in my life.
And in response to the comment about downloading adult films, I have a broadband connection. I could VERY easily do both at the same time.
dan this is lj-quality material. seriously.
This is pretty funny. How did MySpace determine that you are not, in fact, actually Mike Venafro anyway?
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