A lucky few of us are blessed with a special gift. And this anonymous gent (or lady), known on Twitter as @yesmichaelkay, has found his (or her) niche in being able to channel the very essence of the amiable, slightly buffoonish Yankees play-by-play broadcaster Michael Kay into 140-character musings on baseball, philosophy, sex, and life in general -- all of which begin "Hey fans!"If you are a follower of the Twitter feed, the article is a must read. If you are unfamiliar, it might be even more hilarious.
@yesmichaelkay built up quite a following for himself, amassing over 2,000 followers, earning mention by Will Leitch on Deadspin and apparently getting shown to Michael Kay by Jon Heyman. But all this "fame" and adulation (but mostly RTs) came under a cloak of anonymity. No one seems to know who is behind the feed. In direct message on Twitter, fellow Yankee fan and baseball blogger Rob Iracane of Walkoff Walk called it "the great mystery of his life".
I've long suspected I knew who this mysterious bastard was. The Tom behind the tweets. The Frank firing the feed. The Keith at the keyboard. And since no one else has offered any sort of a theory, here you go.
I think it's Andrew Fletcher of Scott Proctor's Arm.
Fletcher invented the Michael Kay drinking game back in May of 2008. He updated it this year and even parlayed that into an appearance on Kay's radio show. Both the drinking game and the Twitter feed thrive off Kay's speech patterns and catchphrases and there is considerable overlap in material.
Most damning though, @yesmichaelkay is following only 22 people. Among those are, appropriately the YES Network, 1050 ESPN Radio, Awful Announcing, and The Onion. However, the account follows both Fletcher's personal feed and the now-defunct Scott Proctor's Arm. The latter was the second feed YMK ever added.
Only three other Yankee fans. No other Yankee blogs. Quite the discriminating taste, wouldn't you say? The feed just happens to be following the man behind the drinking game, with an existing distaste for Michael Kay and a veritable encyclopedia of his verbal tics. Isn't it more likely that Fletcher simply took care to follow his other feeds?
Only three other Yankee fans. No other Yankee blogs. Quite the discriminating taste, wouldn't you say? The feed just happens to be following the man behind the drinking game, with an existing distaste for Michael Kay and a veritable encyclopedia of his verbal tics. Isn't it more likely that Fletcher simply took care to follow his other feeds?
I'm onto you, Fletcher. You can't hide anymore. Turn yourself in.
[Update: It's not him. Props to Jimmy Trania at Hot Clicks for solving this mystery.]