Esmailyn "Smiley" Gonzalez has replaced the late, great Jose Uribe as the Player To Be Named Later. He also aged four years in just one day.
It's not at all uncommon for players born outside the U.S. to falsify their birth records. But the hopping-mad Nationals claim this was more than a fudged birth certificate. They took the fraud to another level, bribing officials, fabricating hospital records, and even creating a brand new identity for the lightning-quick shortstop who isn't as brand-new as previously thought. When the club signed him at the supposed age of 16, Carlos David Alvarez (as his mama named him) was actually 20 years old.
My question: does any of this really matter? When you factor in the Chinese gymnasts with the Dominican baseball players, it all pretty much evens out.
I'm just amazed that they made up a name that sounded like "Smiley" to make the nickname seem doubly relevant. Man, I love baseball.
