In the grand scheme of Twitter “meltdowns,” Justin Upton’s was rather tame, if not perfectly accurate. But, controversy is always a hit with the trend-following Internet crowd, so here we are. What we have is the Upton brothers, both of which play Major League Baseball. BJ Upton is with the Tampa Bay Rays and Justin plays for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
This past Sunday, the Rays played the Texas Rangers on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast, and during the game, the color commentators, Orel Hershiser, and Terry Francona, criticized BJ for perceived mistakes he made while he was on the base paths. And so, the younger brother took ESPN to task on his Twitter page (where else?), calling out both commentators much like they called his older brother out:
Amazing that my brother has made two good baseball plays tonight and the #ESPN so called analysts have bashed him for both of them.
For the kids out there, when your coach gives you the safety squeeze you don’t have to bunt the ball if its not a strike.
And when you’re on second base with no outs your job is to tag on a fly ball and make sure you can advance to third base #ESPN
I’m laughing to myself that nobody else notices that these guys just talk nonsense toward the game as if they’ve never seen a game before
I haven’t turned on ESPN after a game in two years, #MLBNetwork actually works hard at voicing the details of a game. That’s what I watch.
Tito was a great manager and Orel was a great pitcher, I just don’t understand why they can’t call the game the way it is.
From both sides of the coin, this entire thing seems a little bit nit-picky. Did the younger Upton overreact to the criticism or was his reaction warranted? Perhaps there’s more to the story. Perhaps Justin is a paid endorser for MLB Network and this is just a guerilla marketing technique to get more people to subscribe the MLB’s television package. Or maybe he just wanted the publicity that comes when an athlete criticizes the “Worldwide Leader.”
Whatever the case, to me the real story is not Justin Upton sticking up for his brother on Twitter, criticizing ESPN in the process. It’s not like ESPN is above criticism. In fact, just the opposite is true. No, the real story is fans who try to embody the Internet tough guy mentality, even though they would never act in such a manner if they saw Justin in a public setting:
@JUS10UP10 hey asshole, keep running your mouth. Do what you do, eat, looks like you’ll be pushin 300lbs soon. Fuck off from the Rockies fan
If you click over to the Internet Tough Guy’s Twitter page, you see a lot of the same behavior other troll-like beings use when they’re confronted with their own stupidity. Responses like “standings bro” are about as pathetic a comeback a person can make, but that’s not the worst of it. No, that would be the sycophantic Tebow worship, followed by the laughable Internet tough guy act. Which is it? Are you a god-fearing Tebow lover or an someone who runs his mouth while hiding behind a keyboard and a monitor?
It’s sad that services like Twitter has empowered cowards in such a manner, but you have to take the good with the bad.
[Via Awful Announcing]