A few weeks back I was texting back and forth with my oldest son, Grant, who’s a grown man with a family of his own. He’s also a diehard baseball fan, just like his old man.
During a National League playoff game we were watching together, several hundred miles apart, we began sending text messages to each other.
The Chicago Cubs were playing the Washington Nationals, as I recall.
In one text I sent I said “I don’t like (Cubs manager) Joe Maddon.”
Grant asked why.
I said I couldn’t really put my finger on it, he just kinda rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe he was too “new age” for the such a stodgy sport; maybe he was too casual in the way he handled his team.
Our text conversation ended a while later and I didn’t think much about it.
Now I’m here to eat my words.
I’m here to backpedal like an NFL cornerback.
Why the sudden change?
Simple. Maddon endeared himself to me in the middle of the Cubs-Dodgers NLCS, which the Dodgers won in five games.
Quickly, here’s a rundown of what happened: Trailing 0-2 after two games played in Los Angeles, Maddon came under fire for a couple of moves he made with his bullpen.
Beat reporters and other media types did their job in asking Madden some hard questions. And for his part Madden answered them, but issued one caution, suggesting media members show some caution in how they use social media.
Bam!
Just like that, I became a Joe Maddon loyalist.
“I hope you all understand, social media doesn’t count at all,” Madden said. “Twitter doesn’t count at all.”
I certainly don’t blame Maddon for the word of caution to the media; and I don’t blame him for pushing back against reporters’ use of social media as credible source.
The reason I’m suddenly in the Joe Maddon camp is that he called attention to lazy journalism.
Yeah, I get it: social media sites like Twitter and Facebook aren’t going anywhere. When it comes to sports they represent a way in which fans can instantaneously voice their emotions. And, yes, the use of social media can be a very effective tool for traditional media folks to market their offerings to a potentially large group of consumers.
The problem is, there’s a tendency to use sites like Twitter as a source for articles, columns, TV packages, etc.
This isn’t right.
It’s lazy.
Again, I understand the importance of social media to journalism (modern and not-so-modern), and I’m not quite ready to refer to it as “evil” or “the devil” or the ruination of honest journalism (as though such a thing actually exists). But the idea that a media member would use it as a source doesn’t sit well with me.
In Maddon’s case, he was willing to face the media and their thorny questions about how he used his bullpen. But he took issue when reporters and columnists essentially asked him about the outcry on social media, as though that should be a concern of his.
That’s why he said social media doesn’t count.
And he’s right, it doesn’t … or more precisely, it shouldn’t.
I’m currently out of the media biz, and have been for nearly three years. I remember when social media really began to take off; I recall meetings with editors and other decision-makers who were trying to make sense of it all and in the process figure out ways to use it.
Back then we didn’t know the “pound sign” would soon become something called a hashtag. And we darn-sure didn’t imagine hitting a coach/player with “You’re really getting lit up on Twitter, what’s your response to that?”
I sent a few years covering the Utah Jazz, back when Jerry Sloan was their coach.
I found Sloan, a true midwesterner, to be extremely honest and very fair. As pragmatic and stoic as an old farmer (which he was in the offseason), the coach didn’t say anything even remotely frivolous.
He claimed to not know how to turn off his cell phone, so I’m certain he never owned a social media account. And I can just imagine he is response to a reporter who asked, “Coach, your substitution pattern has really come under fire with the folks on Twitter …”
I imagine Jerry chuckling and firing back, “What the hell is Twitter? Sounds like some something a dog might catch, kinda like,
“Ol’ Buster’s got a bad case of the twitter.”
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