Fake Aroldis Chapman free agency tweet sends Yankees fans into a frenzy

Welcome to Elon Musk’s Twitter, where any schmuck can get verified for $8 per month. Don’t you tell us money can’t buy happiness! Because it certainly did for New York Yankees haters on Wednesday afternoon.

Some comedian created an @AroldisChapman account, marked it as a “parody” in the profile description, and paid for the blue checkmark. The user then fired off a tweet in Spanish claiming Chapman had re-signed with the Yankees for three years.

No. No. NOOOOOOO!!! Even those who knew it was a joke couldn’t fathom it. Any reference of Chapman spending another second on the Yankees is toxic and detrimental to Yankees fans’ mental health.

Thankfully, the account was suspended shortly after, but the damage was already done. Fans lost their mind. For a second, we had to picture another hanging off-speed pitch being sent deep into the night sky to give up a lead. Another 96 MPH fastball being thrown straight into the backstop. Another self-induced bases-loaded jam with the Yankees up three runs.

Chapman’s tenure with the Yankees died in early October. Musk allowing this to happen after Yankees fans got their closure is business malpractice on his part.

Fake Aroldis Chapman tweet sends Yankees fans into a frenzy

The sick part is, Yankees fans wouldn’t put it past the team to bring back such a toxic player. They did it the first time trading for Chapman. They did a second time by re-signing him after he nearly blew the 2016 World Series with the Cubs. They did it a third time when he blew the 2019 ALCS. You can just see Brian Cashman thinking, “How bad could a fourth time actually be?”

It’d be pretty damn bad — just like his 400th tattoo! For some reason, Chapman doesn’t own his name on Twitter — “AChapman_105” is his handle, for whatever reason. Surprised he hasn’t updated that in years because he hasn’t consistently hit triple digits since 2017. He’s been living in the past, as have the Yankees for the last three years trying to make this work.

It was already somewhat of a challenge for the average fan to navigate the fake/parody accounts on Twitter peddling fake news. Today just marked the dawn of a new dark, dark era of this pernicious platform.

This shall serve as the final goodbye to Aroldis Chapman. Hopefully it’ll be the last time we’re writing about him unless the Yankees take him deep in 2023 for a walk-off victory.

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