LAKELAND, Fla. -- Phil Coke has a brain.



On Saturday, he was outside talking with it.



Coke took some time out of his schedule over the weekend to meet with the man behind the popular Twitter account entitled "Phil Coke's Brain."



You read that right. For the first time, Phil Coke -- the eccentric left-handed reliever -- met with Phil Coke's Brain -- the eccentric right-handed tweeter.



It was every bit as surreal as it sounds.



I first approached Coke about the idea late last season during a road trip in Cleveland. I originally suggested that the three of us to meet in Lakeland during spring training at Five Guys, because, well, have you ever eaten at Five Guys?



"So," Coke said, "it would be me sitting at a table with two idiots?"



"By my count," I said, "there would be three idiots there."



I mentioned it multiple times late in the regular season, but Coke never committed to the idea. But when I suggested the idea last week -- "Phil Coke's Brain will be here this weekend, so are we going to do this?" -- Coke responded quickly.



"Yeah," he said. "I'll meet him."



Coke picked the time -- first thing Saturday morning -- and the place -- Joker Marchant Stadium. It was on.



Who is The Brain?

The man who is behind Phil Coke's Brain -- for the sake of brevity, let's just use "The Brain" from here forward -- lives on the west side of the state of Michigan. Like Coke, he is in his early 30s and is both a husband and a father. Unlike Coke, The Brain neither points at fly balls nor likes Nickelback, though he pretends to in comments on his Twitter account. ("It's a cross I have to bear," he said.)



The Brain, who attends a handful of Tigers games each year, says just six people know he is the man behind the Twitter account. Coworkers, friends, members of his extended family? They have no idea.



National baseball writers have had discussions about who might be behind the account. So have Tigers players.





Phil Coke

Phil Coke's Brain

During spring training a year ago, one player discussed his suspicions with a few writers. His eyes darted around the clubhouse as he mentioned a member of the media relations team and someone on the training staff as prime candidates. Most assume The Brain is someone close to the team or even Coke himself.



The Brain is shocked that many people on Twitter and around baseball consider him to be a celebrity or even spend time wondering who he is.



"I'm just some guy with a laptop in my basement. It's my own basement. It's not my mom's," The Brain said. "I have some pride."



That basement is where he watches Tigers games, about 150 or so each year, and makes clever, sometimes edgy comments and observations via his Twitter account. The account -- twitter.com/PhilCokesBrain -- purports to be "a magical link to the inner workings of the brain of Detroit Tigers pitcher Phil Coke."



The rest of his Twitter bio makes it clear that the man behind Phil Coke's Brain is not, in fact, Coke.



"I'm NOT REALLY PHIL COKE, sorry," it reads. "Again, NOT PHIL COKE."



That message is lost on many people. Just ask Coke.



"I have people in camp asking me if it's me. 'How do you do it? How do you do it during the middle of the game? How do you do it when you're in the bullpen? Where do you have your phone?' " Coke told The Brain during their meeting. "Really, the thing I'm most tired about is being asked if it's really me. I'm annoyed about that. You've created a monster that I have to deal with every day."



"I'm sorry," The Brain said.



"You should be," Coke deadpanned, then -- he seemed to be joking, but sometimes it's tough to tell -- called The Brain a name not fit for print.



Surprising response

The Brain started his Twitter account about two years ago. He originally considered calling it "Phil Coke's Mind" or "Phil Coke Thinks" before settling on the current title. He remembers when the account picked up its 50th follower. The Brain was amazed that 50 people cared to read his musings, his wife even more so.



He has come a long way since then. The Brain is currently closing in on 14,000 Twitter followers. To put that in perspective, Jason Beck of MLB.com, the Tigers beat writer with the most followers, has about 16,000. Tom Gage of the Detroit News is pushing 10,000. I have fewer than 6,000.



"I'm amazed that anybody's interested in me or that anybody would even care," The Brain said. "I've just been saying stupid stuff on the Internet for so long. It's been two years of Tigers and fart jokes, really. It's nonsense. I'm just Tweeting nonsense."



In addition to trying to channel Coke's thoughts -- which he does well enough to fool some of Coke's teammates -- The Brain intersperses other observations that have nothing to do with Coke or even baseball. A handful of examples:



"Legends are made in October. So are children from Valentine's Day sex."

"The song of the turtle is far better than anything Nicki Minaj has released."

"Unnamed sources are now reporting it is very difficult to live without a name."

"Some of it's Phil, some of it's me, some of it's a character, some of it's nothing," The Brain explained. "It's a show about nothing."



When asked who his second-favorite Tigers player is, The Brain struggled and eventually gave up without naming one. But Coke is clearly his favorite.



"Why wouldn't he be?" The Brain said. "He should be everybody's favorite player."



The Brain leaned toward my cell phone, which was recording the conversation.



"Are you getting this?" he said. "Phil Coke should be everybody's favorite player. He seems to have a little bit of fun. Baseball and sports are supposed to be a fun thing."



The pitcher meets The Brain

The Brain seemed to be having fun during his conversation with Coke, who had everyone laughing at several points.



"I have dorks like this surrounding me every day," Coke told The Brain, motioning toward me, while explaining that he first heard about the Twitter account from a media member.



"I'm not talking to you," he said at one point when he felt I had interrupted. "I'm having a conversation with my brain."



During their meeting, Coke did lay down one ground rule for The Brain: No dogging the Skipper. Coke is a staunch believer in Jim Leyland, and he doesn't want The Brain to question his manager. Coke clearly feels that The Brain reflects poorly on him at times, even though "Phil Coke's Brain" really isn't, well, Phil Coke's brain.



Coke spoke with The Brain for almost a half-hour before moving on.



"I'm leaving," he said as he shook The Brain's hand. "It was nice to meet you."



Coke turned to The Brain's wife and shook her hand.



"I hope I didn't legitimately offend you," he said.



Then, it was over. The first and likely last episode of "Pitcher and The Brain" came to an end. Phil Coke headed in one direction. He needed to get back to baseball. The Brain headed in another. He'll eventually head back to the basement.



But first there was the rest of a trip to Lakeland to enjoy.



The Brain and his wife wandered off in search of tickets for that day's game. They had already watched the Tigers play the day before. They planned to attend two or three more games before heading home to Michigan.



It turned out to be quite a trip. The Brain and his wife even shook hands with Leyland one night during a chance meeting at a popular Lakeland restaurant. But the highlight for The Brain -- "just some guy with a laptop" -- was crossing paths with his favorite player.



"I got to meet Phil Coke," he said. "That's cool. I'm a fan. I'm just a guy. Being able to meet him is cool."



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