It was a foolproof plan! How on Earth did it fail?!?

Brown could probably get Lenny Dykstra to sign up with him for a paid winter vacation in Australia.

I need to bookmark this thread to use as a counter-example the next time some nitwit insists that PEDs MUST work because if they didn't, athletes wouldn't use them. After all, athletes are SMART.

I give him an A for concept, but an F for execution.

Dude seriously wanted to go to Australia

This can't be a complete story. You are looking for a bigshot to pretend to bring to Australia, and you pick Xavier Paul?

Heck, if he'd picked Dykstra as 2 suggests, that would have been better; no one would believe Dykstra's side of the story.

Paul really isn't an ID theft victim. I mean, no one tried to pass himself off as Paul.

Paul's agent, otoh, has a legitimate ID-related beef.

Hilarious Breland Brown article from 2010:

Link

Money quotes:

Brown reported to San Francisco last spring to begin training with the Giants. During his absence, Brown has kept in touch, sending pictures of his locker and providing updates of his first year with the Giants.

After viewing the Dallas/San Francisco game during this year’s World Series, I emailed Brown to ask how things were going. He responded by saying: “The experience has been good. Got injured and signed a brand-new contract with my childhood dream team, NY Yankees.”

Yes, the New York Yankees! In just one year, Brown has signed with two major league baseball teams...

He also said he is grateful for two endorsement deal opportunities he has received...

Though Brown did not get to play in the World Series playoff game against Dallas in October, he said, “I’ll be playing in the 2011 season with the Yankees; I’ll be the one that leads them to the championship. Mark my words!”...

He is indeed someone our community can be proud of.

I guess having gotten this reporter to buy into his legend, he figured he'd up the stakes...

Holy cockeye. Is there no one awake at the Times-Picayune to say, "Hey, wait a sec . . .

oh geez. these guys are from my hometown, on the west bank of the mississippi near new orleans. native new orleanians habitually mock people from the west bank for being somewhat intellectually challenged. this won't change their outlook.

actually, brown is. Paul is from slidell, which is east of new orleans.

This can't be a complete story. You are looking for a bigshot to pretend to bring to Australia, and you pick Xavier Paul?

yeah, it really struck me as odd that he selected Paul. I can understand that he doesn't want to pick someone who is too famous. But why Paul, who has no apparent connection to him? Maybe he found out that Paul was on some kind of list of MLB players that the ABL wanted to recruit.

Though Brown did not get to play in the World Series playoff game against Dallas in October, he said...

Dallas? The Rangers don't even play in Dallas.

ess eff, i just messaged a buddy of mine over there. i wonder if they'll follow up.

tricky, the article mentions that they are very close in age and from the new orleans area. there is probably some connection.

The 'Dallas' thing is typical of the poor quality of writing one can expect from someone from Harvey, which is also on the West Bank. West Bankers are not known for their intellectual attainments.

This can't be a complete story. You are looking for a bigshot to pretend to bring to Australia, and you pick Xavier Paul?

1: You need someone the Aussiess would be interested in- and who is not such a bigshot that the Aussies would immediately, say, "hey why on earth would this guy wanna come here?" So basically you need a fringy MLBer- Paul fits the bill.

2: Paul and Brown are the same age and grew up in nearby towns- that likely gave Brown the plausibility to say that he and Paul were old childhood friends- and that's why Paul was insisting that they take Brown too...

looking at Breland Brown's BBREF page I see that he's put up a .167/.259/.194 line in 81 Independant League and Pioneer league PAs, I suppose Browns' goal was to recreate the Morgan Burkhart path to the majors...
but alas I suspect that Burkhart was a non - "athlete" who just flatout knew how to hit- Brown is, my guess, someone athletic or fit enough so that a scout doesn't immediately do a spit take and laugh- but that line indicate someone who flat out cannot hit a baseball - that line is far worse than what minor league pitchers hit against Rookie league/ Indy league pitchers- it's basically what your random 25 year old beer leaguer would do

I think Brown should have passed himself as Xavier Paul.

Willie Mays Hayes already showed us what you should do if you don't get invited to join a team. Of course, you'll eventually get replaced by Omar Epps.

The trades for pitching.

You would take back the Marcum for Lawrie trade in a second.

Picking up Nyjer for a bag of jellybeans.

Good

The bullpen signings.

Maybe

Pickup of Kotsay who was a great bench guy the last 3.5 months.

Eh.

He drafted Rickie Weeks...Yovani Gallardo...Ryan Braun...Jonathan Lucroy

The GM does the drafting in Milwaukee?

World Series playoff game against Dallas

How I remember that World Series playoff game against the Dallas base ball team.

Crap, disregard my #17, when I logged in I was on another page (best GM) and it redirected me here.

And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling investigators!

I feel like we have heard of this before...

[Gene Rayburn]There's a second aspect to this story. The Brisbane Bandits dipped into a bank account that Peter Moylan had set up to help the development of baseball in Australia. The Bandits did this in anticipation of using the money to pay Pittsburgh's outfielder. So what happened turned out to be a classic case of ___________________________________.[/Gene Rayburn]

"Theft, grand, Queensland"?

That feels forced, but I'm having trouble coming up with a punchline that works with 'Moylan', 'Xavier', or 'Paul'.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Willie Mays Hayes already showed us what you should do if you don't get invited to join a team. Of course, you'll eventually get replaced by Omar Epps.

Yeah, but look how that worked out! Dude's in charge of a freaking hospital now.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Dammit. Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers are laughing at me right now.