Recently two of St. Louis's three sports fanbases were victimized by fake social media pages, when Mardy Gilyard and Colby Rasmus both came under scrutiny for things they didn't actually say. Little-used Mardy Gilyard was bitten when a fake trade request was turned, by a gullible sports radio personality (and gullible reporting from yours truly), into a plausible but baseless request ostensibly from Gilyard himself. Elsewhere, a fake Colby Rasmus arranged fabricated meetups with fans and disappointed kids asking for autographs. Rasmus, characteristically laconic, said: "Be nice if it would stop."
↵Social media is fascinating because it brings us closer to players than they've ever been before; we can watch C.J. Beatty attempt to make a career and then get released in real time, and that kind of thing offers an entirely new way of looking at players who would otherwise be anonymous or permanently impassive.
↵But when you get this close to players it becomes easier than ever to run scams. Journalists, fake-journalists, and fans will all have to watch where we get our first-hand scoops from, because it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell whose hands we're taking them from.
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