Marco Escobar

is a player for the Philly Pies, and has been with the team since Fall Ball. Escobar has previously played for the Houston Spies.
==Official League Records==
Escobar joined the ILB as a lineup player for the Houston Spies with .
During the elections, Marco Escobar's Hitting stat was randomized thrice by Summoning Circle, ultimately boosting it from to .
On , Day 52, Escobar became a pitcher due to Reverb.
During the , Escobar retreated to the Spies' Shadows in exchange for Emmett Tabby as a result of the Spies' will
During the December 2, 2022 Fall Ball, Escobar fell to the Philly Pies.
==History== 
Marco Escobar led the Houston Spies to nearly a dozen 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. Many fellow Agents noted Escobar’s lack of a social or emotional life outside of the game due to their upbringing. 
Though Escobar followed in the footsteps of their family 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 proposed a solution: usage of the Summoning Circle blessing. Franklin suggested that the activity 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 the use of magic to replace their supposed lack of natural talent. Lit by candles, they drew a chalk circle in the center of the Blaseball diamond, chanting rhythmically to summon something—anything—that would help them reach the heights of their relatives.Witness reports suggest that Escobar's eyes turned completely black and they began to levitate. "We just thought it was a neat party trick," wrote one witness, "until a weird buzzing noise filled the stadium and we all kind of ran away."
The ritual failed.Reports suggest that the Summoning Circle itself was hardly done by the book. These rumors include Escobar using the wrong color of candles and not properly erasing previously inscribed stains from the mound. Because the evidence has been scrubbed from the scene, this is unverifiable.
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 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 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 pact and realize that their talent is not inherently their own.
It's unclear whether consensual 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 became somewhat strained. Though their performance objectively improved, they continued to seek methods of growing stronger, some of which were even risker and more troubling.
Escobar was sometimes caught rifling through the belongings of both Morrow Wilson and Math Velazquez, both of whom they believed may be able to assist them in their continued pursuit of Blaseball magic. Velazquez, in particular, has been a fixation for Escobar—though Velazquez insisted that Velazquez is exactly what Velazquez appears to be ("Math is math"), Escobar remained convinced that Velazquez’ status may allow them to “calculate previously unseen usages for common Blaseball spells.” Wilson, being a Chosen One, was similarly of interest to Escobar, but largely declined to comment. Throughout the Discipline Era, both Velazquez and Wilson often seemed tense around their teammate, uncertain as to what they might be planning.
Escobar also became interested in the Shadows, particularly Donia Bailey's journey there. They were 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 conspiracy within the Agency, and that they would return from the Shadows with important 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 conspiracies," and disappeared.
The loss of Howell Franklin to the Charleston Shoe Thieves was particularly difficult for Escobar, who often relied upon their teammate's positivity during their career with the Spies. Escobar soon began to seek out further methods of magical communion. They could often be found standing in a corner of the Spies locker room studying large books of spells before taking the field.
===Pitching===
Despite the success of Escobar's magic, their desire for greater Blaseball-playing abilities was not yet sated. During a 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 was overall worse than their performance at bat, this seemed to only further spur them into their obsession with Blaseball-based magic. Agents reported hearing curious whispers from Escobar's room at night, as well as the telltale scratch of chalk on concrete. What they were planning was anybody's guess, but sources close to the pitcher believed they may be attempting to contact those in the Shadows for some “forbidden knowledge.” 
Escobar’s continued pursuit of improvement despite its effect on their mental health eventually caught the attention of Wilson, who decided to intervene by beginning to teach Escobar certain spells they learned in their early years living with a group of magicians. This appeared to improve the relationship between the two players greatly, and gave Escobar an outlet to express the pressure of their family history. Escobar was noted by commentators to be visibly upset at the game in which Wilson had an allergic reaction.
===Entrance into the Shadows===
After the Election put fellow spy Donia Bailey in the Shadows, Escobar saw a new avenue of research. However, they had no way to follow up on this until Blaseball’s return after the Grand Siesta.
With Blaseball’s return came a massive change in Elections, namely Wills. Wills gave teams significantly more access to their Shadows, and this intrigued Escobar immensely. After a great deal of observation, they concluded that any further useful research needed to experimentally investigate the Shadows. The Spies agreed to this, and Escobar was Shadowed to continue their research, replaced by Emmett Tabby on the pitcher's mound. During the same election, on Wilson’s suggestion, Yeong-Ho Garcia was brought onto the Spies to take Escobar’s place as a magic expert. 
Wilson was Shadowed a few seasons later; the two are rumored to be spending a great deal of time together.
==Fan Works==
File:Marco escobar.jpg|Marco Escobar pre-summoning
==References==
Category:Original Players