What generously is referred to as “social media” too often shows up as antisocial media. For example:
Mets catcher Josh Thole, who has shown himself through interviews and acts of one-on-one kindness toward fans and even animals — he seems a born-and-raised gentleman — last week said he no longer will tweet.
Can’t blame him.
Thole is done connecting with fans because so many of the responses have been blindly and gutlessly insulting, which, naturally, also means gratuitously vulgar and downright hateful. One only can imagine.
So why should he bother?
Twitter, like the Internet and do-it-all cell phones and iPads, provides young wise guys and losers of all ages a cheap and instant form of graffiti, a new-age form of hit-and-run vandalism, a quick and often unaccountable way to be coarse — and worse.
What politicians and social workers now describe and decry as crimes based in “bullying” are often the endgame to the fast and easy exploitation of new technology to trash-talk — trash-typing — which leads to more trash-talking and return-fire trash-talking. And whatever follows that, it’s not likely to be good.
The best people on teams often can be determined by the public by the frequency that they’re quoted in newspapers and interviewed on TV and radio after losses. The go-to-guys on bad days and nights become a matter of simple addition and self-evidence.
Thole, though 24 and hitting .234 entering the weekend, has such a presence.
Post baseball writer Mike Puma describes Thole as “a fantastic young guy with a great disposition. He’s there for you, whenever you want. He’s a true gentleman, always polite, a pleasure to know and deal with.”
SNY’s Kevin Burkhardt: “Josh is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. A Midwestern guy with a firm handshake who looks you in the eye. And he’ll do anything you ask of him. If I asked him to meet me in center field in the bottom of third, I’m afraid he’d show up. He’s special.”
It’s a shame that such a champion human — Thole and his wife’s pick of the litter was a deaf puppy to which they have taught hand commands — has chosen to no longer tweet because of high-tech creeps.
He should have known better. Still, what a shame.
DC station turns wrong into right
Speaking of tweeting, for all the “scoops” that ESPN gets wrong, an ESPN affiliate got one very wrong last week, but came out of it better for the mistake because it didn’t hide from it or pretend that it never happened.
Washington-based ESPN 980 Radio definitively tweeted that Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller would replace Gary Williams at Maryland. But Miller soon after announced he’s staying put.
So how do you handle such a thing? Allow Chuck Sapienza, the station’s programming director, to show you:
In a statement, Sapienza said, “One of our staff members received inaccurate information. … I apologize for the mistake and am embarrassed by it.
“Breaking news, while always a difficult animal to tame in the era of social media, is still as simple as getting the story 100-percent correct. You have my word that we will improve our fact-checking and sourcing. While mistakes do happen in our business, this will not be tolerated or taken lightly. I appreciate all of our listeners and take our credibility very seriously.”
Sapienza ended the missive by including his email address. I don’t know Chuck Sapienza, but I like him!
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The Mets very quietly have done a very solid thing. A plaque on display in the outfield of the Polo Grounds, a memorial to Capt. Eddie Grant, a Harvard grad, lawyer and for three seasons a Giants infielder, disappeared sometime after the Giants’ last game in the Polo Grounds, in 1957.
Grant was killed in World War I in October 1918 during a mission he led to find and rescue “The Lost Battalion.” Grant, who at 34 enlisted despite being three years beyond draft age, is one of 14,246 buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France.
Though Grant is still memorialized by a short stretch of road called The Eddie Grant Highway just a few blocks from Yankee Stadium — it leads to the Cross Bronx Expressway — his achievements as a scholar and athlete and his self-sacrifice as a soldier were about to be forgotten here.
But the Mets recently hung a replica of that plaque, word for word as it first appeared at its dedication in the Polo Grounds, Memorial Day, 1921. It can be viewed in the Citi Field exhibit that includes an historical salute to Giants’ and Mets’ baseball played in the Polo Grounds.
That’s not ‘taking one for the team’
Suzyn Waldman’s frequent radio lectures on baseball would be far more valuable if she knew what she was lecturing about.
Late in Thursday’s Royals-Yankees game, she correctly noted that in a game in which the Royals took a big, early lead, call-up Amaury Sanit came in to pitch four effective innings, giving the Yankees an opportunity to get back into the game — an opportunity, Waldman added at 9-4, that the Yankees hadn’t yet seized.
To Sanit, she then applied a pitching parlance. What he was doing, she said, “is called really taking one for the team.” Errr, no. “Taking one for the team” refers to pitchers who continue to be hit hard in blowouts — certainly greater than 9-4 — yet remain in the game so as not to “waste” any more pitchers.
In fact, with two outs in the eighth and Sanit having allowed two base runners in the inning, he was relieved by Buddy Carlyle. In this one, no one took one for the team.
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Great Moments In Sports: NBC/GolfChannel interrupted live coverage of the TPC, Friday, to present live coverage of a fishing excursion after Michael Bradley’s driver fell out of his hand and into the water on 17. GC stuck with the live action as a spectator carefully descended the wooden bulwark — with Bradley’s assistance and fairway wood — to fish it out.
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Bartolo Colon’s Dominican miracle cure doctor sure sounds a lot like Canadian HGH miracle cure doctor Anthony Galea. Both administer an HGH treatment to all but pro athletes who compete in the United States, yet succeed in fixing them either way? Fascinating. So how come no such doctors have practices in the United States?
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As seen on Versus’ Stanley Cup coverage, the visitors’ penalty box in San Jose is sponsored by — we kid you not — Bad Boys Bail Bonds.
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Call me crazy, but Marv Albert replacing Gus Johnson on CBS’ college basketball and NFL roster wouldn’t be too bad a move for CBS, would it?