Word is out that Major League Baseball has told their employed beat writers, who write for the MLB.com sub-sites for each time, must refrain from “tweeting” about anything other than baseball from here on out. These new restrictions hit home for local stlcardinals.com writer Matt Leach who’s widely followed Twitter account gets lots of use throughout the day.
Aaron Gleeman reporting for NBCsports.com
Multiple sources have confirmed to me that Major League Baseball is cracking down on Twitter usage, ordering MLB.com writers to cease tweeting about all non-baseball topics and scolding players for their Twitter usage in general.
I’m told a big part of the policy change is due to MLB not wanting non-baseball tweets showing up on the MLB.com Twitter feed/aggregator, but banning every writer from non-baseball talk because of that is like killing a fly with a sledgehammer.
In fact, after examining Leach’s twitter activity, it appears that this mandate may have gone out on April 27th. Not only is that the last appearance of a “non-baseball tweet“, it was immediately followed by this:
Directing people to a new, and locked, Twitter account.
This is so dumb. God forbid the public like a beat writer for anything other than baseball, which they all talk about lots anyway because their freaking beat writers!
I love baseball, but the people in charge make some amazingly short-sighted decisions (Hello MLB.com video blackouts!) far too often.