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The Oakland Telegraph
9 October 2025
Snel fesses up about "drug" rumours
By Ted Dibear, cuddly toys correspondent

One day on from Oakland's wildcard victory, third baseman Patrick Snel faced the media and confessed the truth about the drug smuggling rumours that have appeared in tabloid newspapers in recent months. Oakland police subsequently confirmed his version of the story. In a shock revelation, it transpires the tabloid rumours were a complete pile of nonsense. The Telegraph thought this all along, of course. Honest we did. Ahem.

Snel admitted that he has a collection of 1000 teddy bears in his apartment. It turns out that when, earlier in the season, he was spotted by paparazzi photographers in the airport arrivals hall hugging a brown teddy bear he had bought for his collection while in the Netherlands on a trip home, he concocted a false story about being caught smuggling drugs inside it, as he thought he would be mercilessly teased if the truth of his teddy bear fetish was revealed. "I've always loved them", he explained, "They're so cuddly wuddly and cute and furry and lovely. My favourite is a little white bear called Erik."

Sitting alongside Snel at the press conference, Oakland GM Paulie Beane said that he had discussed the situation with the third baseman privately, and explained in no uncertain terms that, even as a grown man who should know better, loving teddy bears is infinitely more cool and acceptable than taking drugs. Proven innocent of wrongdoing, Snel will remain with the club and will be on the active roster for the divisional series against Minnesota. He refused to divulge whether this Erik bear thing would be coming with him for good luck.