UPDATE: No one has said so or anything (OK, now they have!) but just plain logic is causing most people to believe that the Joyce Twitter account is a fake. The avatar thing is just too nuts. And it’s not likely that that Major League Baseball would allow such a thing anyway.
How did I get suckered? Just lazy, I guess. Fake accounts tend to be over the top. That this one wasn’t probably threw me. I’m usually sharper and more skeptical than that, so who knows what my problem was. I suppose I was just caught up in a credulous moment this morning.
Still, there was something positive here. As I said a few minutes ago, I heard about this from secretly viewing Jon Heyman’s Twitter feed (shhh! don’t tell him!). Which means that someone is
pulling a prank on Heyman, because he believed it. I don’t approve of Twitter hoaxes, and I sure as hell don’t like being duped just like Heyman was, but I do
approve of people messing with Heyman, so consider me conflicted
here.
11:35 A.M.: Here’s something I wasn’t expecting: infamous-then-noble umpire Jim Joyce started up a Twitter account late last night. The best part: at first his avatar was a screen-cap of his call at first base in the Galarraga game, showing that Joyce has either a good sense of humor or a great perspective or both. He changed it, though, because people thought it was one of the many hoax celebrity (such as he is) Twitter accounts. This is legit though. (Update: rather, it probably isn’t)
If I had to guess it will soon go quiet, like so many Twitter accounts do. At the very least by the beginning of next year because I bet Major League Baseball doesn’t want umpires on Twitter. I kind of hope not, though. Anything that cuts through the filters and static between newsmakers and the public is a good thing.
