SI: Jeff Locke and Bogus Game Fixing Tale

Jeff Locke photoshop

We have read a lot of weird tales over the years, but the one in SI about a small time handicapper trying to ruin Jeff Locke, is by far one of the strangest.  Ever.

How a small-time handicapper concoted a wild MLB game-fixing tale. 

Locke was a head scratcher when he first was called up by the Pirates.  It elicited photoshops like this that we obviously spent way too much time on, but he was just a difficult pitcher to enjoy on a Major League mound.

One of the craziest parts of the story–and rest assured Jeff Locke knew nothing about it, he was just sucking all on his own, was this for me.

Pittsburgh jumped out to an early lead behind Locke, a late-season call-up. While the Bucs were ahead, Congero says, the handicapper phoned her, acknowledging that the game wasn’t going the way he had predicted. He implied that he was in touch with the lefthander even as the game was under way“I talked to my friend the pitcher, and he said he was going to make it right,” Congero remembers him saying.Sure enough, in the bottom of the fifth inning, Locke fell apart. In a span of eight pitches he gave up a home run, a single, another home run and another single, shrinking the Pirates’ lead from 6-1 to 6-5. He left the game, and Pittsburgh went on to lose 13-9.

It must be hard at times being a pro athlete.  Especially when a guy that was a youth teammate of Lockes’ growing up, tried to ruin the southpaw because of how Locke responded on Facebook.

Unreal.