“Congrats to my brother @upstateballer getting the call up to Detroit!!” – Mud Hens pitcher Robbie Weinhardt on Twitter
Remember the days when updates used to come through on the transactions wire in the daily newspaper? If so, you will likely have little or no idea about what Twitter is, and the impact that it has had on the sports world. It is life in its most simplest form – 140 characters and a vocabulary that is specific to its medium. For us fans, this is one more way for us to feel connected to our favorite athletes. We know when they wake up, go shopping and apparently, when their teammates have been given the call to the majors.
I use Twitter (@jeffjlutz) as part of my daily job, connecting with colleagues and business contacts from across the country. Nobody would care if I announced to my Twitter followers where I was going to dinner or where I had filled my car up for gas. Somehow, conversations you wouldn’t even have with your significant other have become Twitter-worthy, mixed in with actual news and commentary. For one certain Tigers farmhand, Twitter went from being a fun hobby to a near career-altering decision.
If there’s one thing I know about baseball management, it’s that they like to make their own news and announcements. The reason we know what Dave Dombrowski looks like is because his role places him out frequently in front of the media. Robbie Weinhardt is a good sized right hander that is considered Comerica Park material within the next 18 months. While he did not mean anything malicious by a Tweet about OF Casper Wells, his teammate and good friend, he did break some news which quickly spread across many of the major press outlets covering the Tigers. His Tweet was immediately removed, but the damage was done. Twitter accounts reflect back on the one making the Tweets, and in this case, back on the Tigers.
