Posted on 11/10/2017 9:29:31 AM PST by jjotto
For the last eight years, baseball fan-turned-writer Becca Schultz has presented herself online as Ryan Schultz, a false identity she assumed when she was 13 years old, duping and harassing women on Twitter along the way.
On Wednesday night, a woman named Erin tweeted a series of screenshots announcing that Schultz is not actually Ryan, a married father of two studying to become a pharmacist. Instead, Schultz is a 21-year-old college student in the Midwest, whose entire career as an aspiring baseball writer has been under a fraudulent byline.
Schultz began contributing to Baseball Prospectus’s local White Sox blog at the end of the 2016 season and wrote for BP South Side and BP Wrigleyville throughout the 2017 season. Additionally, Schultz wrote for the SB Nation sabermetrics site Beyond the Box Score throughout 2017.
People who knew Ryan Schultz online say that in retrospect, some of his behavior seemed odd, but no one expected that this moody White Sox fan from Missouri would actually be a teenage girl.
Schultz’s fraud was as true to the catfish genre as can be. She told the people who discovered she was not who she said she was that she assumed the identity because she felt as if she couldn’t write about baseball professionally as a woman, especially at the age of 13. As the deception went on, she couldn’t figure out how to get out of the middle of her web of lies.
Over time, Ryan formed serial relationships with women who use Twitter to talk about baseball and hockey. Some women told me that he would get drunk and berate them; others told me they felt emotionally abused and manipulated because he would imply that he’d hurt himself if they didn’t continue to talk to him. Ryan received nudes from at least two women I spoke with, one of whom said she did it because she was afraid he would hurt himself if she didn’t.
Schultz’s story is interesting for reasons far beyond its sheer shock value. It’s entirely reasonable that at the time she created the Ryan persona, she might not have thought she could easily have a career writing about baseball as a woman. She’s also drawn a big red arrow sign pointing toward the exploitative ecosystem of online sportswriting, which created the conditions for her to get her enviable opportunities without much interrogation from editors who have a lot to do and few resources with which to do it.
Most of all, though, there are real women who have been genuinely hurt by their interactions with a woman who, as she tells the story, caught herself up in a lie she didn’t know how to untell, not least because it was bringing her what she wanted.
Sounds fishy.
That never works for me.
There is definitely a correlation between brain damage and listening to Hawk Harrelson on a regular basis - I'm not sure which is the cause and which is the effect.
As a Jewess on the US, I can only point out that the number of women who allegedly DATED, but had no sex with, Roy Moore is EXACTLY the same number who accused President Clinton of FORCIBLE RAPE, a FAR more serious offense. Now we know why all REAL Americans put our 2nd Amendment FIRST. Just sayin’!
Me neither. BIG red flag, but I don't mess with any Internet relationship.
I remember reading, in the CB craze days, that a truck driver whose route took him though New Mexico, started up an over-the-air relationship with some handicapped (wheelchair) female. For a while it was an OK time killer but as time went on she became demanding, finally using the "or else I'll hurt myself" gambit.
The truck driver said "See ya." and dropped her like a hot potato. Said that every time he drove throgh NM, he'd hear on on the air, trying to hook someone else.
Things haven't changed much.
Looks like ‘he’ was fired for questionable online behavior before her identity was known.
MLB statistical analysis stands on its own. She’ll have a nice career if she wants it. And a Hallmark movie contract.
You can assume any identity you want. You can change your sex. You can think you’re a dog.
Heck, just send them a ugly nude of somebody else. Thanks to Government Google anyone with a browser can access millions of pictures of porn.
A 13 year old girl made productive use of her time on the internet which far more than most kids her age. Not really weird in today’s world with 63 genders and white women heading NAACP chapters.
“You can assume any identity you want. You can change your sex. You can think you’re a dog.””
Woof Woof.
You have threatened harm to yourself on the internet? If not, perhaps that is why. 8>)
On second thought, don't do that. It may be a crime in some jurisdictions.
I would go so far as to say her questionable non-sports online behavior is nothing compared to most celeb sports commentators actual personal behavior.
Well said.
Nobody has asked for nude photos of me, either, perhaps because they've seen the clothed photos on my page and said, "Meh."
I assume this young woman just wanted to exercise emotional control over others, since she could see a naked woman by looking in her bathroom mirror.
Most be related to shankhunt42 in SouthPark, LOL
No, this story does not explain why she emotionally manipulated women into sending nude photos to her.
Just another nutty lesbian lying to the world again, imho. Imaginary evil white men spraying “hate speech” for evidence are in her very near future.
Some of us object to all bloggers posts. I only click through to the blogs when they have posted the entire article, it interests or entertains me and I want to see what else they have to offer. I don't click the excerpted pimped blogs. I don't object to someone else taking initiative to earn a few bucks, unless they are trying to force it on me.
I’m afraid that if I threaten to harm myself the woman will say “go ahead”.... /s
p.s. I never can stand that some people engage in such emotional blackmail, not that I have ever experienced anything that extreme....
I’m afraid that if I threaten to harm myself the woman will say “go ahead”.... /s
p.s. I never can stand that some people engage in such emotional blackmail, not that I have ever experienced anything that extreme....
I wrote on the SB Nation blog site for a football team until they relocated. I never got a dime, but some people that wanted to establish some creds to get into a paying gig wrote there.
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