"I'm so juiced right now!" the face of the NBA exclaimed late last Sunday night via tweet. Was Lebron James eager, perhaps, to wreak havoc on his former Cleveland Cavaliers team Tuesday night? Or maybe, as an avid sports fan, the self-proclaimed King was simply expressing his delight at the captivating NFL football earlier that day and at the prospect of the Patriots-Giants "Rematch Bowl."\nWrong on both counts. James was sharing with the world his glee at scoring "over a milli" on the popular iPhone game, Temple Run. Unfortunately, James could only get through about three-quarters of the word "million" before disappearing in the fourth.
I have largely avoided Twitter precisely because of the inane frivolity of tweets such as James' gem. If I'm going to waste my time on the Internet, I'd much rather be watching "Guy on a Buffalo" and playing Temple Run myself than hearing about Chad Ochocinco's crazy day at the dentist's office.
But I also acknowledge that James' casual tweet embodies the intimate exposure to otherwise inaccessible athletes which appeals to so many sports fans. In the old days, we had to guess what our favorite athletes were like or what they did when they weren't excelling on the field. Now, with so many marquee athletes tweeting with reckless abandon, and with sports outlets such as ESPN gearing so much of their content toward the social networking site, we can know for sure - 140 characters at a time.
But if "look-at-what-a-normal-and-funny-guy-I-am" snippets from the likes of James and Ochocinco are the "good" of Twitter in the sports world, and anything involving Floyd Mayweather is the "bad, but perversely entertaining," what Kyle Williams experienced earlier this week certainly represents the ugly. After Williams fumbled away the 49ers' chances in their demoralizing 20-17 overtime loss against the Giants Sunday, crazed Niners' fans threatened the second-year return man's life on the social networking site. Williams' father, White Sox general manager Kenny Williams, understandably slammed the hostile fans and admitted that the incident had compelled him to "question our culture of sports as it stands."
Obviously, no one would deny that a string of death threats to a punt returner sickens any decent person and should invite contemplation of our contemporary sports climate and the importance we attach to these games. But I also believe the assault leveled at Williams on Twitter this week signals the overbearing influence of the site on today's sports world - and that this influence is not entirely for the better.
Most glaringly, Twitter enables players to express themselves away from the shine of the cameras and the formality of a press interview, often with controversial results. Sure, it's intriguing and even amusing sometimes when an athlete criticizes a teammate or talks trash on Twitter. Uncomfortable opinions on hot-button topics or ill-advised glimpses into the seedier aspects of an athlete's life, on the other hand - like Rashard Mendenhall's questioning of al-Qaida's role in the Sept. 11 attacks or Colorado football recruit Yuri Wright's recent flurry of indiscrete tweets which resulted in his expulsion from high school - needlessly generate scandal and polemic sports reporting on non-sports issues which could have been avoided in a Twitter-less world.
Speaking of sports reporting, our increasing reliance on Twitter for instant information has also undermined the credibility of breaking news. While the ability to report news instantly before having to write up a formal report is certainly innovative and useful for many stories, it has compelled some journalists to race for the tweet button instead of carrying out thorough and sound research.\nEarly Sunday morning, for instance, CBS Sports was so eager to get the jump on the Joe Paterno story that it spuriously tweeted a declaration of his death hours before the legendary coach actually passed away. Remember, too, that athletes and even random observers without the journalistic pedigree of CBS Sports can push the Tweet button just as easily and induce a gullible U.S. populace into hysterics with a false story, as actor Rob Lowe demonstrated last week when he reported Peyton Manning's retirement. You don't need a degree in journalism to realize that the sprint to break a big lead on Twitter can lead to rampant misinformation. And misinformation is a big no-no.
The constant exposure to athletes' personalities and capacity for interaction which Twitter facilitates has also distorted the player-fan dynamic. Where the emphasis should be on performance and integrity, Twitter has helped shift the focus to personality by encouraging fans to interact with their favorite sports figures outside of the context of the sport itself. This is why the Ochocincos of the world are generating more fanfare than ever, while quieter but more productive guys such as Tim Duncan continue to fade into public oblivion. Pretentious as it may sound, I value sports for the lessons they teach us about life, and the more we obsess about "getting to know" the athletes outside, the less we maintain our focus on why sports are more than just glorified reality television.
Most troubling of all, Twitter has also altered the sports-fan relationship in a more sinister way. Bolstered by the protection of anonymity and distance, sinister people feel confident enough to pepper athletes with racial abuse, heckling and even death threats, as we were reminded earlier this week. Enraptured as we may be by the details of Danica Patrick's morning workout on the treadmill, is that level of exposure really worth subjecting athletes to cyber-abuse from the dregs of sports fandom?
Twitter is revolutionizing the manner in which fans absorb sports media for good reason: It's an undeniably fascinating method of connecting the entire sports world - as Tim "Tweetbow" illustrated this past year. And whether I like it or not, Twitter is here to stay.
I only hope the cost of knowing Lebron's Temple Run score isn't too steep.
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