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Teen Girl Posed For 8 Years As Married Man To Write About Baseball And Harass Women
Deadspin ^ | November 10, 2017 | Lindsey Adler

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.


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Sports; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: baseball; hoax; pervert; sendnudes
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To: jjotto; shibumi

So, maybe double, triple perhaps, the maturity level of many of the serial blogpimps on FR?


41 posted on 11/10/2017 10:44:46 AM PST by Larry Lucido (Take Covfefe Ree Zig!)
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To: jjotto
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.

Hmmph ... that never worked for me.

Those women just responded with a smirk while they were handing me a knife ...

42 posted on 11/10/2017 10:52:28 AM PST by BlueLancer (ANTIFA - The new and improved SturmAbteilung)
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To: Enchante
"....but if anyone says they need nude photos or else they will 'hurt themselves' the answer is, 'sad to hear it, you should get help right away'...."

I must be missing some trick, when this girl, now a young woman, can get women to send "him" nude shots.

I could try forever and no women would send me their nude photos. What am I doing wrong? :-)

43 posted on 11/10/2017 10:54:16 AM PST by HotHunt
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To: jjotto

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’!


44 posted on 11/10/2017 10:59:03 AM PST by 2harddrive
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To: Admin Moderator; 2harddrive

2harddrive here needs another timeout.


45 posted on 11/10/2017 11:02:28 AM PST by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: ifinnegan

Think there was a TV movie about a female reporter who posed as a man.
Harry Potter author J.K.Rowling used her initials, IIRC, rather than her first name because the target audience, boys, might not want to read books by someone named Jennifer.


46 posted on 11/10/2017 11:05:50 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: Tax-chick

..if I knew that trick would have worked...


47 posted on 11/10/2017 11:10:03 AM PST by Pelham
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To: jjotto
As the deception went on, she couldn’t figure out how to get out of the middle of her web of lies.

What Bee Ess. Just stop posting.

48 posted on 11/10/2017 11:27:25 AM PST by Fido969 (In!)
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To: jjotto

“...non-sports online behavior is nothing compared to most celeb sports commentators...”

Exhibit #1) Keith Olbermann


49 posted on 11/10/2017 11:30:30 AM PST by beelzepug (The permanent political class that runs this country is...the great(est) danger we face)
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To: Fido969

Possibly either a lesbo (doubtful at 13 but possible), or there is an unmentioned manipulating boyfriend.


50 posted on 11/10/2017 11:30:36 AM PST by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: jjotto
or there is an unmentioned manipulating boyfriend.

Yeah, it's always a man's fault. Women are innocent little creatures who can do nothing bad if left to their own devices.

51 posted on 11/10/2017 11:34:23 AM PST by Fido969 (In!)
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To: jjotto

George Elliot


52 posted on 11/10/2017 11:42:46 AM PST by NonValueAdded (#DeplorableMe #BitterClinger #HillNO! #cishet #MyPresident #MAGA #Winning #covfefe)
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To: mac_truck

Who did they send the checks to? Who cashed them?


53 posted on 11/10/2017 1:40:19 PM PST by AZLiberty (The logical endpoint of "zero-tolerance history" is zero history.)
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To: jjotto

Cam Newton is shocked a teenage girl knows that much about baseball.


54 posted on 11/10/2017 2:22:46 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: Tax-chick
Ryan received nudes from at least two women I spoke with, one of whom said she did it because she was afraid he [sic] would hurt himself if she didn’t.

Facebook will hurt itself if you don't send nude pictures to it, too.

55 posted on 11/10/2017 2:36:11 PM PST by Disambiguator (Keepin' it analog.)
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To: jjotto
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.

If he identifies as a married adult man, thean he should be accepted as that.

56 posted on 11/10/2017 4:52:37 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (don't forget to mouse your sisterhooks)
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To: raccoonradio
Harry Potter author J.K.Rowling used her initials, IIRC, rather than her first name because the target audience, boys, might not want to read books by someone named Jennifer.

She has since written a series of private eye mysteries* using the name of Robert Galbraith

*Now adapted for TV


57 posted on 11/10/2017 5:12:14 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (don't forget to mouse your sisterhooks)
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To: NonValueAdded

The brothers Bell (Acton, Currer, & Ellis)


58 posted on 11/10/2017 5:14:32 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (don't forget to mouse your sisterhooks)
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To: Oztrich Boy

Well played


59 posted on 11/10/2017 6:51:02 PM PST by NonValueAdded (#DeplorableMe #BitterClinger #HillNO! #cishet #MyPresident #MAGA #Winning #covfefe)
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