Evan Gattis is maybe the best thing going in baseball. Now he's been given a fictional backstory to match.


His real biography is the stuff of Hollywood. An unheralded prospect, Gattis dropped out of college to deal with anxiety, drug, and alcohol issues. He spent four years wandering the country before deciding to pick up a bat again. (His Twitter avatar is his ID card from when he worked as a janitor.) The Braves took a flyer on him, and he tore up the minors and the Venezuelan league, where he earned the nickname El Oso Blanco, The White Bear.

Gattis homered in his second major league plate appearance, and seemingly hasn't stopped homering since. He's gone yard 10 times in just 121 at-bats. He's homered three times in his last four games, two of those as a pinch hitter. He has one fewer homer than he has singles. His slugging percentage is nearly double his OBP. He is unreal.


It probably won't last. It's too beautiful. (Remember Shane Spencer?) But in the meantime, Atlanta is justly offering up its firstborns on the altar of Gattis. Local radio station 680 The Fan has put together "The Legend Of El Oso Blanco," a fanciful account of Gattis's journey. He was by Tibetan wolverines? He goes fly fishing for whales? Trees commit suicide to become his bat? I think this is only slightly fictionalized.