Twittering away on the field of play
Pro athletes finding solace in short course discourse
By Terrance Gavan
I just checked my Twitter account.
I count 18 pro athletes and 22 sportswriters and columnist among my rapidly expanding Twittering list of friends.
I am following Canuck hoopster Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Chris Bosh, Shaquille O’Neal, Lance Armstrong, Terrell Owens and swimmer Michael Phelps.
Steve Nash just twitted me the other day. He scored a guest shot on the popular HBO series “Entourage.” He also gave a detailed 140-character – the Twitter maximum - account of his vacation in Brazil. Lance Armstrong peeped vaguely about the wheelie goons from the drug-testing police in Europe. Shaq tweeted Kobe well in the NBA finals.
Do I need to know all this?
I follow Denver sports columnist Woody Paige, get tweets from my old friend, and Globe and Mail columnist, Jeff Blair, and I also follow tweets from New York Times sports.
Twittering is all the rage in professional sports today. It’s creating some dilemmas. For every real Shaq or real Steve Nash there are the imposters.
Recently someone set up a fake Tony La Russa account. La Russa is the manager of baseball’s St Louis Cardinals. The bogus Tony Tweeted this under La Russa’s name: “Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher” — that, an obvious reference to the deaths of two Cardinals pitchers since 2002 (Darryl Kyle and Josh Hancock) and La Russa’s own DUI incident two years ago.
I can’t help it. I smiled, a bit. What can I say, I like the sophomoric turn of phrase. Tony was not amused.
La Russa sued the San Francisco-based company for unspecified damages for harming his reputation and causing emotional distress. The suit was settled a few weeks back when Twitter agreed to pay La Russa’s legal fees and to make a donation to his Animal Rescue Foundation.
Which brings us to the LPGA and their commissioner Carolyn Bivens who said in an interview last week that she “encourages” players to use handheld devices to post content on social-media Web sites such as Twitter or Facebook during tournaments, even if it runs counter to golf etiquette.
Bivens said she would “love it” if players used the social media site Twitter.com to connect with fans during their rounds. Paula Creamer, a leading light on the LPGA tour rejected the notion outright.
Creamer says she is aghast at the idea and called Bivens “an idiot” for even suggesting the use of Twitter mid-round.
How do we know this?
Well Creamer told the world and her followers all about it on a recent post to her “Twitter account.”
“I will not be twittering in my round,” Creamer, who’s ranked third in the world, wrote on her Twitter page shortly before teeing off for a tournament last weekend. “It should not happen in any sport. The players have already told the tour no way.”
Begging the question. “Is Paula hitting irons, or ironies?”
I have my own brush with Twitter limelight.
It happened last week.
Tony Kornheiser a co-host – with Michael Wilbond - on ESPN’s popular Pardon the Interruption sports talk show, manages PTI’s Twitter blog. Kornheiser has a lot of time on his hands since his ouster from the third seat on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Tony’s spending a lot of his off-hours Tweeting. He often asks for input for the PTI show.
But Tony also takes time for some non-sequitur meanders.
Lately it’s been raining in Washington. A lot. This has caused no end of problems for his dog Maggie, who apparently does not like to go out in the rain.
How do I know this? Well, Tony is tweeting … about Maggie.
“My dog didn’t go out again today. More rain. She simply won’t go in the rain. Might have to toilet train Maggie!” tweets Tony. “She puts her head down on the concrete, digs in her paws, and won’t budge. I’d tug at her, but she’s 14 and I’m afraid what might happen. It’s supposed to rain for two days, so she’s bound to go in the house.”
I tweeted back, warned Tony about the dangers of kidney disease in old dogs, the need for regular bowel movements and then I tweeted a suggestion for a trail of bacon bits from his porch to the backyard bushes.
Today, followers of Kornheiser’s PTI Twitter blog and I all shared some tweeted joy. “Hey my tweety peeps … Maggie went doodooo in the rain! All thanks to my Twitty friend terrancegavan, a.k.a. The Gavball. Big props to bacon bits, Maggie unfurled, and the Gavball.”
That hit went out to PTI’s 50,000 plus followers.
I now have friend requests coming out my ying-yang.
I am a full-fledged celebrity in Twitterland.
Steve Nash Tweeted me from the set of Entourage.
“Hey Gavball … nice job with Maggie. My dog Phoenix used to fetch the paper. Now he’s taken to ripping it up into tiny pieces. Any suggestions? Steve.”
I wrote back. “Hey Steve. I read my paper on line … now can we interest you in a jump from Phoenix to Toronto? Where you can reunite with your old National Team buddy Jay Triano and bring an NBA Championship to T-Dot?”
From Steve?
Nothing yet. Steve couldn’t comment even if he really, really wanted to. It would constitute tampering and go against strict NBA guidelines.
The trouble with Twitter?
All feathers, no substance.
And my mailbox is filling up with dog questions.
Anyone know what to do with a Labradolly who likes to twirl from the living room drapes?
It’s driving Tiger Woods and his interior decorator crazy.
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