The Times They Are a Changing

Before there was Facebook or Twitter, or even the internet (GASP!) people received news from newspapers. If a big news story broke you would have to wait until the following day to read about it or huddle around a radio to listen to it; reporting the news was strictly for the professionals. For the generation we live in today, the idea of physically holding a newspaper to learn about events occurring around the world seems foreign. A disastrous tsunami hits Japan and we know about it within minutes, a celebrity passes away and we can read about it on multiple online newspapers, Johnny Damon gets traded to New York and we can watch Red Sox Nation cry. The internet is infinite. Especially for a sports fan, the internet is full of possibilities. If you don't catch the game, there are websites for that, if you want to check the score, there are websites for that, and if you want to know where Kevin Millar is and who he is with, there is even a website for that. To imagine a life before that is laughable, why would we? We can do and say anything we want and put it on the web.

Recently, Major League Baseball released a policy regarding the use of social media. It is more closely related to a legal document but it contains ten prohibitions:

1. Players can’t make what can be construed as official club or league statements without permission;

2. Players can’t use copyrighted team logos and stuff without permission or tweet confidential or private information about teams or players, their families, etc.;

3. Players can’t link to any MLB website or platform from social media without permission;

4. No tweets condoning or appearing to condone the use of substances on the MLB banned drug list (which is everything but booze, right?);

5. No ripping umpires or questioning their integrity;

6. No racial, sexist, homophobic, anti-religious, etc. etc. content;

7. No harassment or threats of violence;

8. Nothing sexually explicit;

9. Nothing otherwise illegal.

10. Anyone who violates these rules is subject to discipline from the commissioner.

Years ago the only connection you had to baseball, besides physically being in the stadium (or playing it), was by listening to the game on the radio or reading about it in the newspaper. In Curt Smith's article, Baseball and Mass Media, he states, "In 1938, only 13 MLB teams used the radio. The exception: New York City's Yankees, Giants, and Brooklyn Dodgers, completing a self- imposed five year ban." The teams believed that the broadcast would hurt attendance, so they banned coverage. What on earth would we do today if the Yankees didn't allowed live coverage, play-by-play, pitch-by-pitch? Cheer for joy? :) Banning coverage of a game from any team would cause an outrage if that was the case today. Fans are diverse all over the country. 

Not only does the publication of baseball information seem insane, but the way it was done before television or internet is just an insult to the game entirely. Smith says, "An announcer knew how to describe a game he never saw. A Western Union Simplex telegraphy machine operator at the park sent data to a studio; b1 meant ball one, low; s2c, strike two called..." 

It was a whole different world of communication. As a fan you only heard news from announcers or newspaper writers, never directly from a player the way we do today. Any MLB Organization can send out a tweet seconds after the final score of a game is determined and you can receive it straight to your phone. The news is not just for journalists anymore. The rules for social media use only make sense. Not only is the player a representation of who he is to his fans but he is a representation of the organization, which could end up biting him in the butt. A possibility that was never an option when the radio was your only source of news. 


http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/03/14/major-league-baseball-releases-its-social-media-policy-and-its-pretty-good/