We've all been there, Mark: Brewers rally for friend-zoned fan

MILWAUKEE -- Christian Yelich paused for a moment and pondered.

Has he ever been friend-zoned?

“I don’t believe so,” Yelich said eventually, breaking into a smile.

Yelich and the Brewers were empathizing with a mysterious “Mark,” who found himself very publicly on the business end of a “let’s just be friends” at American Family Field during Monday’s game against the Pirates after a scoreboard message went viral.

It read, “Mark -- your friendship means the world to me -- let’s not wreck it.”

That hurts worse than a Corbin Burnes fastball to the ribs.

Whether it was an inside gag or someone really donated $100 to Brewers Community Foundation to rebuff a romantic advance, it didn’t much matter. A snapshot originally tweeted by Brewers fan Diana Seegert spread across the Internet and drew universal sympathy for poor Mark.

The well-wishers came from all over, including -- allegedly -- from the home dugout.

And that's exactly what the Brewers did, scoring two in the eighth and two in the bottom of the ninth on a walk-off homer by Keston Hiura.

Yelich knows a thing or two about viral tweets. In 2019, after he posed in his birthday suit for ESPN’s Body Issue and drew rebuke from one female fan, Yelich responded, “Relax Roxane.” The phrase became so popular it wound up on T-shirts, and the next night, Yelich strode to the plate to The Police hit, “Roxanne.”

“I didn’t think it was going to blow up the way it did,” Yelich said. “I was being genuine, like, ‘Let’s relax on this one, it’s not that big of a deal.’ The Mark thing [Monday] night, this was funny. I actually laughed on this one.

“If you look at that original shot, there is a lot going on there in five messages. There’s chaos. Some dumb things go viral, but this one is pretty funny.”

As of Tuesday’s first pitch, the identity of poor, sweet, friend-zoned Mark remained a mystery. A Brewers spokesperson said their Department of Relationships was looking into it.