"Social media communication has changed baseball -- but not for better"

From the San Jose Mercury News

Review by Justin Graves in SRM 334 (section 2)

After the Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers in a game of small ball, Rangers starting pitcher Matt Garza went on a Twitter tirade, even calling out the wife of one of Oakland’s players. Throughout the game, A’s infielder Eric Sogard and others laid down bunts that Garza is known having trouble fielding. Apparently at some point, Sogard’s wife said something to get under Garza’s skin, and he lashed out on Twitter, using severely sexist and even misogynistic terminology. Garza has since made his Twitter account private and “apologized” for his inappropriate actions. 

The article goes on to talk about how social media is changing the way players communicate in baseball, but not for the better; at least in this case. Before the game (ironically), Rangers manager Ron Washington was interviewed about the whole concept of Twitter. Washington admitted to not even knowing what Twitter was, which can potentially be a major problem for his players’ sake.

Looking at this issue, it could not apply more directly to this class and what we are learning about. Matt Garza provided a prime example of exactly what not to do with social media. By now, we are all following our favorite athletes on Twitter, Vine, Instagram, and every other possible social media platform. We use these platforms to feel a part of these athletes’ lives, and they use it to interact with their fans and each other. This can be a risky platform because, as Garza so wonderfully demonstrated, athletes can get caught up in the moment and say things they don’t mean. Or maybe they mean exactly what they mean, but it isn’t meant for the public to hear or see.

A’s manager Bob Melvin was also interviewed before the game about Twitter, and he unintentionally pointed out the pivotal downfall in players using Twitter so avidly; once you write a post, there is no going back. Sure, you can delete it later, but you’ve already sent that tweet out for thousands of fans to read, and take screen shots of. You can make your account private, but people have already seen, and taken screen shots of those tweets you sent. Matt Garza both deleted the tweets and made his account private, which really didn’t change anything. I was able to search Google Images and within seconds I had thousands of pictures of the tweets that Garza sent out. Other than the fact that the tweets were mildly disturbing, they were immature, inappropriate, and childish.

The problem with athletes using social media, specifically Twitter, is that they get frustrated, grab their phone, send an angry tweet and five minutes later they immediately regret what they just did. However, as was just mentioned, there is no turning back from what is now available for the entire Twitter universe to see. The other problem is that baseball managers have no way of controlling their players from doing so; they are too old to even understand what Twitter is or how to use it. Baseball is one of many sports that is adjusting to the online world, but they have yet to figure out a way to lay down a sort of “code” on the etiquette players should take on to the social media world. In fact, this isn’t the first time that Garza has gotten “in trouble” for his tweets. Earlier this year Garza went to Twitter calling out Cubs (who he was playing for at the time) fans being “fake” and being excessively negative. While Matt Garza may be somewhat of an extreme case, it seems as though the MLB needs to try to pull in the reigns a little on their players and what they post on their social media accounts. However on the other hand, they are simply humans that have strong emotions as the rest of us, but they have much more of a spotlight on them. Maybe Matt Garza just needs some anger management courses.

---

Review by Kenta Kuroki in SRM 334 (section 2)

As we talked about the class for the print media, we have been seeing tremendous changes in providing contents from a paper to a screen in the web. Because of the progress of technology, everybody could be a part of media, which is good. Of course, players could say everything if they want to do. But, at the same time, it becomes more difficult to keep their privacy. Here is an example of bad case for using social media as celebrities. 

Texas starter Matt Garza insulted A’s infielder Eric Sogard and his wife by using the Twitter on the weekend after the game. He tweeted badly because Sogard did a bunt to score knowing that Garza has a trouble with his fielding. Garza said that “It’s a man’s game so keep you trap shut!” apparently to Sogard’s wife. After a while, he seemed that he deleted his tweets, but that was too late. Followers, reporters, and fans knew what he did it.

The article also talks about some problems related to sports communication in baseball by using the current technology. The manager Ron Washington in Texas Rangers did not what the Twitter was before the scandal happened. I think this could be really problematic because the boss should know what is happening in this world as a responsibility of their work. Moreover, the article says the bosses in the sport team might have lack of knowledge how to treat with the Internet things for players, which they should fix that as soon as possible. As another problem with the social communication including the Twitter, the article says “Once you write or say something and post it, there’s not going back.” As I mentioned about the Garza’s case, it is really right. As I found his tweets on the Google images, possibly every baseball fan might know what he has done even if he deleted his stuffs. As a last problem, baseball has many games and more games than other sports have, and that makes baseball get troubles to talk about a lot of things related to games according to the article.

Before going to the conclusion of this paper, I need to mention that other sports players besides baseball do the same thing like the Garza’s case, and actually put the video into our Powerpoint. I found interesting because athletes says something which is not appropriate to speak up as their life standpoint. I mean that celebrities have less privacy and more limitation, so they should be careful on the statement.

This article is relevant to our course because we should know what is happening around us, even if it is a basic level just saying that be careful to use social media as athletes. Lastly, to avoid the Graza’s case, we need to educate players as well as possibly coaches, managers, and maybe everybody related to sports industry. For Garza’s case, he should not use social media as my opinion because he cannot draw the line whether it is ok or not.