Former big league pitcher Kyle Farnsworth was born in Wichita, Kan. He went to high school and college in Georgia. He pitched for Chicago, New York, Detroit, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Pittsburgh during his big league career. He had an electric fastball and some good seasons, but was never an All-Star or really a big, nationally-known name.
He retired 12 years ago.
But somehow, in Baseball-Reference's annual most searched pitcher in the U.S. map for 2025, he was the current most popular hurler in Iowa?
"Yeah, I was trying to figure out how or why that came about," Kyle Farnsworth said over Zoom. "I have done some deer hunting up there, but wouldn't think that would make me the most-searched old, washed-up baseball player in 2025."
Well, apparently, it was because of one solitary man living in the state of 3.2 million.
"I'm blown away," Bob Laures told me. "I guess I'm just that big of an idiot."
Idiot is a bit of a harsh word for Bob Laures to use.
The Waverly, Iowa, resident did something we've maybe all done at some point in our Internet lives -- either on purpose or by accident.
Laures was on a road trip to Cooperstown with his son to see the Hall of Fame a couple years ago, and, as any baseball-obsessed dad might do on a road trip, he started playing Immaculate Grid.
"We're doing the grid, because I got a couple hours to spend," Laures said. "And I forget what the exact category was, but I came up with Kyle Farnsworth [a nine-franchise player who's perfect for the game]. To which [my son] Eric says, 'Who the [expletive] is Kyle Farnsworth?' It became a bit of a joke after that. Fast forward like a year later, when we get new phones, guess who my homepage of Baseball-Reference is?"
After scouring Farnsworth's stats and perhaps recounting the magic of some of those early Cubs years to his son, the 6-foot-4 fireballer's page became Bob's Baseball-Reference homepage on his browser, as he alluded to above. So, whenever Bob wanted to go to the site, it first went to Farnsworth's tab.
"I think either Eric or I pinned it," Laures told me. "I don’t think Chrome did it automatically."
Normally, that might not trigger a huge spike in traffic to one player's page. But, well, Bob really plays Immaculate Grid. A LOT.
"It's a lunchtime ritual for me," Laures said.
Eric puts a little more in perspective on it.
"I mean, if there's nine people on Immaculate Grid, and you look up two or three people per category, that's 20-30 times a day [to Farnsworth's page]," his son said, laughing.
Multiply that over a year and that's about 10,095 visits to Kyle Farnsworth's Baseball-Reference page. By one guy in Waverly.
A town with about 10,500 people living in it.
"I think I found out around New Years. Someone said, 'Hey, did you know you're the most-searched baseball player in Iowa?' Farnsworth told MLB.com. "I said, 'What are you talking about?' I had no idea. ... It's an honor to still be remembered."
Farnsworth was also, incredibly, the ninth most-searched overall player in Iowa -- Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani were first and second on that list. The next state where Farnsworth was searched the most? Illinois. He was the 833rd most-searched player there.
So yes, it's hard to imagine it's all just by chance and not Bob endlessly searching Farnsworth's page all day every day. Farnsworth did play 30 games with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs while he was with the organization, but he didn't pitch a perfect game or do anything extraordinary while there. There aren't any statues for Kyle Farnsworth outside of Principal Park.
"You gotta understand, I follow B-Ref on Instagram, obviously, and it's cool at the end of the year they post who is No. 1 in each state," Eric said. "And I'm looking at Iowa, because that's where I'm from, and it's Kyle Farnsworth. This makes no sense. Everywhere else is like Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, even Shohei as a pitcher. Kyle Farnsworth. Smack dab in the middle of the heartland. There's no way this is a coincidence. There's no way."
Unfortunately, there's no way for Baseball-Reference to officially say whether Laures is the lone reason why Farnsworth is No. 1 in the state. But they have their hunches.
"While we can't confirm with 100% certainty, our analytics tell a pretty compelling story," a Baseball-Reference spokesperson said. "When we looked at the cities driving the most traffic to Kyle Farnsworth’s page, a small town in Iowa ranked third -- trailing only big cities like New York and Chicago. After speaking with Bob, and confirming he was browsing from that exact town, the math certainly seems to check out."
Really, though, as long as Bob doesn't change his pinned Baseball-Reference page (he says he won't), there's only one way we'll truly have our answer.
"If it's Kyle Farnsworth next year, then we'll know for sure," Eric said.