You Didn’t Ask

* While I think it’s ridiculous that Ozzie Guillen can get suspended for tweeting from the park once he gets tossed from a game, I think it’s even more ridiculous that we are now at 6 Major League Baseball players getting arrested recently and none of those players has even been reprimanded publicly, let alone actually punished. Having written that, tweeting is not some God-given right and, yes, I think players and anyone else involved in the game (managers, coaches, umpires, bullpen catchers even) should be prohibited from it as long as it goes along with other things that are prohibited during the game. Are any of them allowed to make phone calls during the game or jump on the Internet and send emails? If not, I don’t see why they should be able to use Twitter.

* Speaking of idiots who drink and drive and/or tweet…Kris Medlen, a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves who is currently rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, posted this gem on Twitter today:

Double header with the brew crew??….. Everyone is Gunna be drunk off there asses!

It’s worth noting two things: Medlen’s brother on the mound is Derek Lowe, who happens to be one of the five MLB players who was arrested recently for drinking and driving and part of Medlen’s Twitter profile reads “In Atlanta… add in the occasional beer.”  So Medlen tweets the above and a Braves blogger retweeted it and added his own little jab “Wait, is Lowe pitching?”  (Much to his credit although unneeded in my opinion, Talking Chop apologized to Medlen for his “off-color joke”.)  Medlen’s reaction was to call Mr. Chop a “fuc*ing douchebag”.  Now, whether he is or is just someone who thought he was being funny, I think Medlen needs to take a class is social media (or just use some of his contract money to buy a bag of clues and a thicker skin).

Here’s the thing that is truly awful about all of this web 2.0 stuff:  It is INTERACTIVE.  Anyone who wants to get online and do so can say whatever they want.  As an adult person, Mr. Medlen should already know this.  If you make a joke about drinking or getting drunk on a site where the main purpose is interacting and spreading information and one of you teammates just got arrested for being drunk while driving, you have to expect that people are going to comment on it.  And regardless of the ‘fairness’ of it all, you are a professional who gets paid to play a game and your salary is dependent on the fans actually showing up at the games.  Calling them a “fuc*ing douchebag” makes you look like the expletives you spewed yourself.  Maybe a simple “Not cool, dude” would have sufficed, eh?  I know it stinks that every schmo with a computer can get their digs in against your drinking and driving teammate but thems the breaks, pallie.  Interactions such as you had today aren’t going to make MLB any more lenient on your brothers who tweet.

*  I was at the game last night with  my friends “Tru” and “SoxCruiser” and Tru kept regaling us with trivia throughout the night.  I was pleased that I got him at the end of the evening with my own little bit of trivia (that I pretty much assumed those who cared about such things already knew but I could be wrong):  The lyrics to the Dropkick Murphys’ song “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” were written by musical genius Woody Guthrie.  Woody’s daughter let DM choose some lyrics to use and this is one they chose mostly because it had the word “Boston” in it.  At a game last year, I told this to two thirtysomething guys sitting next to me at Fenway who were wondering why they were singing about a sailor who lost his leg and the response I got was “Who’s Woody Guthrie?”.  And folks wonder why sometimes I weep at Fenway Park.