Iowa Cubs player Anthony Giansanti explains why he’s been leaving a ticket for Ronda Rousey

Back in the day, Houston Oilers coach Jerry Glanville used to leave a ticket to every home game for Elvis Presley, in hopes that "The King" might stop by if he just so happened to find himself in the vicinity of the Astrodome on a given Sunday. This was considered quirky because, by the late-1980s, Elvis was conspicuously dead.

Ronda Rousey, on the other hand, is alive and well and training out in Glendale, California for a fight coming up in less than two weeks. Is she a baseball fan? Who knows, but there’s a player out in Des Moines, Iowa who began leaving a ticket with her name on it at will call, just in case Ronda might be in the mood for some AAA action from the Chicago Cubs farm club.

His name is Anthony Giansanti, a 26-year old utility player for the Iowa Cubs. You might have seen the SportsCenter tweet that delivered him from relative obscurity into a ballplayer with an ambitious crush. Five days ago Giansanti -- who has the physique of a chiseled light heavyweight -- had the idea to leave Rousey a ticket for a game against the Memphis Redbirds. He began leaving her a ticket for each game in the home stand, extending into the series against Round Rock.

And he began to tweet about it, a comical brushstroke that began to attract attention.

How did this come up? 

"The funny thing about Ronda is, we’ve had a lot of conversations about her in the clubhouse, and I’m a pretty tough looking guy in the clubhouse," Giansanti told MMA Fighting. "And I’ve always been asked if I think I can beat up Ronda Rousey. And I’m like, I wouldn’t want to beat her up -- I want to take her out on a date."

Hey Ronda, same location diff. opponent. 7 pm in Des Moines. Will call will have your ticket #Everyday @RondaRousey pic.twitter.com/J9sAatIB1B

— Anthony Giansanti (@GianSanity) July 20, 2015

So Giansanti, in the spirit of perpetuating an inside joke that manifest in the clubhouse, took a course of action.

"I left her a ticket one day, just hoping the guys would look at the pass list and get a good laugh out of it," he says. "They said, you should tweet that…it’s funny. So I did, and the first one got some love and then I tweeted it again. Then that made it like an on-running joke. Never ever thought it would escalate to this. It was harmless fun, and it caught fire."

Sports Illustrated was the first to put in on Facebook. Then, through the social media grapevine, ESPN’s SportsCenter feed tweeted it out, with a message for him to "keep dreaming big."

Giansanti, who grew up in New London, Connecticut, and went to school in Uncasville, where Mohegan Sun is located, only recently got into mixed martial arts. He loved it immediately.

"My best friend is a huge UFC fan," he says. "We lived together in spring training, and he really got me hooked on it. It’s all been very recent, my love for the UFC and fighting."

Now he’s inviting one of the game’s most transcendent figures to come watch him play baseball.

Giansanti says he’s not sure if Rousey is aware that there’s a free ticket waiting for her at the box office on game night. He’s never met her, nor seen her in person. He’s not sure if she knows he exists, or even that here is such a thing as the Iowa Cubs. He only knows that his attempt to get a rise out of his teammates, along with a little celebrity crush on Rousey, has gone from zero to one hundred in something like six seconds.

"It amazes me how quickly stuff can spread," he says. "Holy cow."

Though it’s unlikely to happen before her August 1 bantamweight title defense against Bethe Correia at UFC 190 out in Rio de Janeiro, what would happen if Rousey actually took him up on the offer? What if she showed up to Principal Park and claimed the ticket that he set aside for her? What if he looked up to the designated seat as he stood in the on-deck circle, and saw Rousey -- the UFC’s biggest star -- taking in the action?

"That’s never really been part of the plan," Giansanti says. "The part of the plan was to get a few laughs. I don’t know. I think that would be cool, but I don’t expect her to or anything. But it would be cool. It would be a good ending to the story. I guess if she came I’d have to ask her out on a date, right? I’ve come this far."