MLB: Bench archaic ways, not Panda
If you had to watch the Boston Red Sox every day this season, you would seek escape on Instagram, too. That, at least, is the first thought after seeing the news that third baseman Pablo Sandoval was benched for liking an Instagram photo during the seventh inning of Wednesday’s game in Atlanta.
The second thought is less snarky: It is time to stop forcing players to sneak their social media fix in the bathroom, and incorporate the technology into the sport.
Sandoval handled the situation well, apologizing and accepting his punishment, according to Red Sox reporters. And sure, he broke a rule, because ballplayers are banned from electronics during games.
But this is 2015, a perilous time for this slow-paced game. Commissioner Rob Manfred has done well in his first year improving baseball’s feel, and by remaining open to new ideas. In this spirit, the electronics rule has to go.
What better way to engage younger fans than to allow players to tweet from the clubhouse and bench, show bullpen chatter on Periscope, and otherwise accept that these technologies are the future of communications?
MLB has already embraced streaming of games, in a clear admission that television is an aging medium. The over30 set watches in our living rooms, but if you’re younger, you probably follow your favorite team on your phone or tablet, while also tweeting and whatever else. Can anyone really object to what Sandoval did, when we have spent the past several years taking our own phones into the bathrooms, at home and at work? It used to be a newspaper during those private moments, and now it’s social media. Maybe you’re better than that, but I’m not.
And, as evident with what is known in New York as #MetsTwitter, many fans experience ballgames by engaging with these technologies. What’s wrong with a player doing the same?
To paraphrase Bob Dylan (an exceedingly unhip reference in 2015, but oh well), games not busy being born are busy dying. In that spirit, Sandoval should not be punished, or made to apologize.