There's shooting your shot for a job on Twitter, but what about pitching your pitch? That appears to have worked for A's free-agent signing Nathan Patterson.
Patterson signed a minor league contract with Oakland on Thursday, just 17 days after his brother tweeted a video of him hitting 96 mph at a speed pitch challenge during a Colorado Rockies game at Coors Field.
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While Patterson might have gone viral within the last two weeks, he seems to have been working at this for quite some time. Since January, he has posted footage on Instagram and Twitter of himself training at Parker Sports Performance in Nashville, Tennessee, and Patterson tweeted in June that he topped out at 95 mph in a game.
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Looking for market inefficiencies has been in the A's DNA since "Moneyball," but this feels more like something out of "The Rookie." Give or take a few years, at least, since Patterson's Facebook page lists him as 23 years old.
Oakland Athletics
Of course, Patterson's story by itself has the makings of a true-to-life tale. He surely hopes signing Thursday is just the beginning.
