The Barstool crew ran a straightforward bit: draft the best athletes who never played in the NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL. Gymnasts, sprinters, golfers, whatever. Simple concept, built for a YouTube hang. Then the results hit Twitter and it turned into the kind of thing where grown men are yelling about a quill pen at 1 in the morning.
Who won the ‘Best Non 4 Major Sport Athlete Draft?’
That question -- who actually won -- is doing a lot of work, because nobody in the replies seems to agree on the graphic itself, let alone the results. Stoolies Clubhouse wasn't shy about it, firing off a shot straight at the guy who put the thing together.
What skell made this graphic @Return_Of_RB??
Rico Bosco, who apparently drew the ire, wasn't backing down on his own pick either. He went with Kerri Strug -- misspelled in the tweet as Carrie -- the 1996 Olympic gymnast who stuck a vault on a badly injured ankle to clinch team gold for the U.S., an image that's been replayed for 30 years. Bosco's defense doubled as a history lesson nobody asked for but everyone got anyway.
@DogWalkBarstool @BarstoolChief @Blutman27 @barstoolWSD @EddieBarstool Carrie Strug !!!!! She was an American hero spell the name right
Jeff D. Lowe chimed in with his own praise for a different pick entirely, calling Usain Bolt a steal at 10th overall. Which, fair -- the fastest man alive falling to the back half of a fake draft of non-major-sport legends is objectively funny value, whether you're building a mock roster or picking a fantasy team of Olympians.
But the real plot twist came out of nowhere. Eddie Barstool had apparently drafted a quill pen -- yes, an actual quill pen -- as one of his picks, presumably as a joke entry. Then the MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia went and made him look like a genius.
This year's All-Star Game leaned hard into its host city's history: Philadelphia landed the game to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and MLB built a whole pregame ceremony around it. Managers and starters walked out through replica Liberty Bells, stepped onto a diamond ringed by 13 stars for the original colonies, and signed the lineup card with an oversized feathered quill -- a direct nod to the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration at Independence Hall, just blocks from Citizens Bank Park.
The Starting lineup for both All Star teams are signing their name in the lineup like it’s the Declaration of Independence
So when Eddie saw the ceremony play out live, he took his victory lap immediately, framing it as vindication for a pick that had almost certainly been clowned in the group chat when he made it.
Quill pen at the All-Star Game. Another draft pick I was vindicated on
It's a dumb bit and everyone involved knows it, which is exactly why it's working. A fan-made draft of gymnasts and sprinters shouldn't have anything to do with a 250th-anniversary MLB ceremony, and yet a guy who picked a writing utensil for a joke got to say he called it. That's the whole Barstool internet in one thread -- petty arguments over a recap graphic, a real defense of an Olympic legend, and a quill pen improbably having the best week of anyone involved.