Me at the Old Yankee Stadium

Imagine having to sit through an entire baseball game with announcers whose unseemly hate for your favorite team is too obvious after every inning, after every close play, or after  some “managerial” mistake. Imagine hearing the announcer just say the most random and irrelevant things at a ration that’s far too frequent for anyone to fully accept. Imagine one had a venue by which they could simultaneously criticize these announcers who dominate the game and have their own venue in playing the role of announcer for others.

Well, that role last year fell on the lap of one Jose Vilson, and the venue was Twitter. Because Twitter lends itself to this practice in such an open forum, I created a space where Yankee fans could vent their frustrations at the lack of quality we’ve enjoyed all season from Michael Kay and Ken Singleton in a voice as objective as a World Series Yankees fan can possible be.

Naturally, with every poke at the opposing players and every score update, a collective of tweeters did not take too kindly to me using that venue to livetweet (even when they would livetweet their shows continuously, or discuss their ridiculous hashtags for days on end). One even tried to reproach me on the basis of SEO and good Twitter techniques, scolding me on the use of MY OWN VENUE which people CHOSE to follow even when I’d warn those who weren’t interested about the process.

That’s when I started to learn more about how humans worked. People only want to hear commentary from those who, while lousy and gets tuned out, still get paid 6-7 figures to do so while those who can do a better job (by many accounts) for free. People only want to hear themselves talking about irrelevant and sometimes heinous things, and not others. It’s strange. Then, I get more positive feedback from people in class or work who can’t watch the game, or those who wanted to rebel against the sounds emanating from the terrible announcers’ mouths. Those people, and everyone who stuck with me through the 3 weeks or so (most people really), are the ones I wanted to reach.

That’s why I liveblogged the game to begin with: it was fun, it was fresh, and it was a public service. Plus, it’s my Twitter. Forget your rules. So says the greatest Yankees livetweeter alive.

Jose, who never received any royalties from the New York Yankees or Major League Baseball.