Marco Escobar

Marco Escobar
Basic Information
Team	Houston Spies
Status	Active
Batting
Pitching
Defense
Running
Dates Active	Jul 20, 2020–present
External Links	Blaseball-Reference Player Changes Player Page
Personal Information
Item	None
Armor	None
Evolution	Base
Pregame Ritual	Glossolalia
Coffee Style	Decaf
Blood Type	Basic
Fate	4
Soulscream	XAEAHXAEAHXIEAHAIEAHAIIHAXEIHAXEIHEAAXHEAAXHXIAIOXIAIOXXIIIUXIIIUXEAAIOEAAIOEEXAOEEXAOEEUEAIHUEAIHU

Marco Escobar is a pitcher for the Houston Spies.

Official League Records

Escobar joined the ILB as a lineup player for the Houston Spies at the beginning of Season 1.

During the Season 4 elections, Marco Escobar's Hitting stat was randomized thrice by Summoning Circle, ultimately boosting it from to .

On Season 9, Day 52, Escobar became a pitcher due to Reverb.

History

COMMUNITY REPORTS
The remainder of this article contains lore created collaboratively by the Blaseball community.

Marco Escobar led the Houston Spies to to nearly dozens of championships in the 1970s.

The Marco Escobar who currently plays for the Spies is their much younger cousin, the youngest in a line of all-star Blaseball players dating back to the game's invention. Escobar is often said to have been born with a blaseball already in hand, though investigations have turned up only redacted statements from the doctors that participated in their delivery. Throughout their early life, Escobar struggled to live up to the immense expectations of both their family and their fans, in spite of the intensive personal training provided by their parents and older siblings.

Though Escobar followed in the footsteps of their ancestors and was signed to the Spies as a batter, this did little to assuage their anxieties about their performance. They languished in relative obscurity at the bottom of the Spies' lineup for several seasons until fellow batter Howell Franklin (now of the Charleston Shoe Thieves), proposed a solution: a séance. Franklin suggested that a group séance would promote team unity and, "really just lift everybody's spirits, you know? Haha, get it?"

Summoning Circle

Determined to follow in the footsteps of their illustrious ancestors, Escobar agreed that dabbling in the dark arts was, if nothing else, something they hadn't tried yet to better their skills.

According to teammates who asked to remain anonymous, Escobar's frustration with their inherited legacy came to a head in Season 4, and, their decision aided by the Spies' poor performance, they went ahead with the plan. With knowledge and texts ill-gotten from other teams and a little help from the Spies' resident genderless smoke creature and doctor Fitzgerald Blackburn, Escobar sought a darker path to replace their supposed lack of natural talent. Lit by candles and anointed with ritual oils, they drew a chalk circle in the center of the Blaseball diamond, chanting rhythmically to summon something—anything—that would help them reach their ancestral potential.

The ritual failed.

Undeterred, they tried again. Still nothing. On the third attempt, a delicate shift in the air, a warm breeze, and a muttering of, "Oh, fine, I'll just—" from a force unseen signaled that something had happened. It wasn't until the second game of Season 5 that the results became clear: in the bottom of the seventh inning, Escobar stepped up to the plate. Their first swing was a foul, the second a strike. They tightened their grip on the bat, muttered something in a language later identified as ancient Sumerian, and, suddenly, their eyes flashed crimson before they hit a triple deep into the outfield.

When questioned after the game, Escobar insisted they had no idea what the press were talking about, though they seemed uncharacteristically chipper after their success. Their teammates similarly claim that they haven't noticed a difference, even as Escobar has sometimes been spotted humming and hovering several inches off the ground before hitting a home run.

In a recently declassified interview with Houston Spies management, Escobar is quoted as saying, "It was pretty scary at first, but then it turned out that [INDECIPHERABLE GROWLING NOISE] was a huge fan of my great-great-great-[REDACTED]-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Emigdia Balan, who played for the Atlantis Mudskippers! Wild coincidence, right? We really hit it off after that, and xe offered to help me out with my batting, you know? Anyway, we have a pact now. It's cool."

One teammate who asked to remain anonymous (and who has since been traded away, though the team denies that the two incidents are related) said they believe that Escobar now lives in fear of losing control of whatever entity they've summoned or, even worse, that the long lineage of Escobars past will find out about their unholy pact and realize that their talent is not inherently their own.

It's unclear whether demonic possession is strictly against the rules of Blaseball, but Spies leadership has thus far elected to not raise the issue with the ILB.

Relationship with Teammates

Following their successful Summoning Circle ritual, Escobar's relationship with their teammates has been somewhat strained. Though their performance has objectively improved, they continue to seek methods of growing stronger, some of which are even risker and more troubling.

Escobar has been caught rifling through the belongings of both Morrow Wilson and Math Velazquez, both of whom they believe to be some kind of prophetic figures with a deep connection to realms unknown. Velasquez, in particular, has been a fixation for Escobar—though Velasquez insists that Velasquez is exactly what Velasquez appears to be ("Math is math."), Escobar remains convinced that Velasquez is some kind of prophet for a yet-to-manifest divine entity. Wilson, being a Chosen One, is similarly of interest to Escobar, but has largely declined to comment. Both Velasquez and Wilson often seem tense around their teammate, uncertain as to what they might be planning.

Escobar has also become interested in the Shadows, particularly Donia Bailey's journey there. They have been spotted prodding at dark, shadowy areas of Spies HQ and speaking into hidden microphones, asking where the missing agent might be. Prior to Bailey's retreat into the Shadows, Escobar said they believed that Bailey was the subject of a great prophecy, and that they would return from the Shadows with knowledge unforeseen—knowledge that would be of great interest to Escobar. Bailey, for their part, simply glowered and replied, "I'm doing this because I want to, not because of any stupid prophecy," and disappeared.

The loss of Howell Franklin to the Charleston Shoe Thieves has been particularly difficult for Escobar, who often relied upon their teammate's innate spiritual talents during their career with the Spies. Escobar has since sought out alternative methods of supernatural communion and can often be found standing in a corner of the Spies locker room chanting in forbidden tongues before taking the field.

Pitching

Despite the success of Escobar's rituals, their lust for Blaseball power is not yet sated. During a Season 9 game, a team-wide Reverb sent Escobar, Karato Bean, and Sosa Hayes to the pitcher's mound from the batting lineup. Though Escobar's performance on the mound has been overall worse than their performance at bat, this does not seem to have deterred them. Agents have reported hearing curious whispers and humming from Escobar's room at night, as well as the telltale scratch of chalk on concrete. What they are planning is anybody's guess, but sources close to the pitcher believe they may be attempting to contact those in the Shadows for some forbidden knowledge.

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