Indians acquire A’s power hitter Brandon Moss
December 8, 2014The Johnny Manziel era likely begins this week against the Bengals
December 8, 2014As I was watching the Cleveland Cavaliers put in work against the Toronto Raptors Friday night, and following along with the game on Twitter, I got to wondering: What if fictional sports teams existed in the real world, and we could tweet all about ’em? More specifically, what would it be like to follow the fictional 1989 Cleveland Indians of Major League?
For instance, what would the tweets say about Pedro Cerrano whiffing on yet another curveball against the Yankees?
Think of the posts when Roger Dorn muffs that grounder in the ninth. About Eddie Harris’ K-Y balls? Rick Vaughn’s wild pitches? Lou Brown’s mustache?
Think of all the memes and running jokes and ironic tweets and silly hashtags that would be born of discussing this team on Twitter. It would be over-reactionary and excessive and stupid and perfect.
I should state that I am the opposite of an expert on technology. But ride with me on this for a brief second:
Our relationship with technology isn’t going to jump suddenly to Terminator levels. It will grow and evolve gradually, each side affecting the other. We won’t be rocked by any one change because everything new becomes normal. We get used to stuff.
What I’m saying is that Twitter has become essential to my sports watching experience. I don’t know exactly when or how it happened, but nowadays if I’m watching a game, I’m watching my timeline too. I see smart things and funny things on Twitter. Yes, there are a lot of weird things and dumb things and things that are basically 140-character fart jokes, but so what? Ignore them. Look!—Kyrie just became some kid’s favorite player:
Beyond the GIFs, I can always rely on Twitter for a couple solid jokes and interesting comments every game. The efficiency rating may not be high, depending upon whom you follow, but the gross production is inarguable.
Take Friday’s Cavs game in Toronto, for instance. Cavs Twitter (or #CavsTwitter, if you prefer) was in top form, everyone bathing in the joy of Tristan Thompson’s winning MVP at his personal homecoming game. Thanks to Twitter, I saw this picture, and I saw it immediately:
https://twitter.com/Cavsanada/status/541063722106515456
Given the choice of seeing that photo as soon as possible and not seeing it as soon as possible, I know which way I’m voting, ideals of maturity be damned.
There are people with whom I interact on Twitter that I’ve never actually met in person, yet I think of them as—well, I suppose I think of them as friends. If I’m talking to someone multiple times a day and I’m not forced to do it, then that person is my friend, right? Friends are the people we choose to spend our time with, not the ones we have to.
So while I’ve never shaken hands with, say, the abovetweeted Justin Rowan, or other Cavs Twitter illuminati, or the vast majority of the WFNY roster, for that matter, I’ve chatted more often and recently with them than I have with traditional friends like my college roommates.
What any of this actually means; who knows? I suppose I’m just saying that I like sports and I like people, and Twitter—while it’s an easy medium to mock, and like anything else, it can be abused—is a fun to way to put them together.
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So, yes, what if Major League happened right now? Could you bear the hot takes about the hole in Cerrano’s swing? Would you tire of Darren Rovell tweeting about Dorn’s contract? Would someone point out that we only know six players’ full names?
And yet—imagine a GIF of Willie Mays Hayes’ game-winning slide. A Vine of Pedro’s bomb to left. Forty rapid-fire WILD THING! tweets after Vaughn strikes out Clu Haywood, the freaking Triple Crown champ, on three straight heaters.
Think of the reactions to Jake Taylor beating out that squeeze play. Not like his life depended on it, but because it did.
Maybe those tweets would just be dumb and trivial and lame. Maybe everyone should just shut up and enjoy the game. Maybe Twitter is kinda dumb and we should not be so self-involved.
But if everyone felt that way, I’d know that I’d miss the folks I follow. It would be a bummer not having those jokes and nuggets around.1 I’d laugh and smile a little less, and I have found that, in life, I prefer laughing to not laughing.
So thanks, Twitter people. You make sports more fun for me. I’m guessing I’m not the only one.
- #MeVsNuggets, for instance. [↩]
7 Comments
I freely admit (in oldmancurmudgeon fashion) that the allure of Twitter escapes me. From a social media value, I can barely tolerate Facebook sometimes, so I can’t imagine Twitter would be better.
From a sports info perspective, it just seems like for whatever minor value we get from it (the instantaneous news bit), there are greater negatives: navigating through the rumors, the anonymity leading to trolling and negativity, etc. Anything that opens up the floodgates to ESPN cesspool commenters lacking in civility doesn’t sound fun.
Fair criticisms all. It does lead to wayyy too many rumors and unsubstantiated bits of info, and I imagine that the trolling/haterism would be brutal for any public person. Anything anonymous online can get ugly, as you say. Lots of noise to cut through.
That said, I still very much as a game-watching supplement, mostly for the jokes. Thanks for reading.
There’s an asymmetry that’s much more enjoyable about Twitter. And the people are far funnier than some dude that you went to high school with who has cleaned up and found Jesus.
Twitter got me through a weekend in NYC last year with free places to stay, so it’s okay by me.
Oral History of the 1989 Indians;
http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2013/07/10/an-oral-history-of-the-1989-cleveland-indians/
You mean, Johnny Weezer, Class of ’93? That dude is hi-larious.
People may not want to hear this but things as recent as the late 90’s Indians would have gone haywire today. Police calls to Thome’s house. Manny’s preference of (ahem) younger women, Omar’s ladies, Carlos’s late night antics, Alberts pharma, Kenny’s love of fast cars.
There’s a price for everything. Man those were great teams.