You can, and should, be following my Twitter feed at @DanJGlickman (hey, we’re told to advertise ourselves these days), but there are some other great baseball twitter feeds to follow, such as…
The big-name national writers
They seem obvious, but they got to where they are for a reason. Probably more than 70% of baseball news is first heard from one of these guys: Ken Rosenthal, Jon Heyman, Buster Olney, Jeff Passan, Bob Nightengale, Jayson Stark, Rob Neyer, Tim Kurkjian and a bunch of other guys. Really, if you regularly see a person talking baseball news on ESPN or MLB Network, and they are not a retired athlete, there’s a good chance they also have a above-average-to-great twitter feed. Ditto if you see their byline in SI, USA Today or another national publication. Not included more because he is a bit more scattered in his coverage (he’s not simply a baseball writer) is Joe Posnanski, who you should still follow.
The Official MLB Twitter Feeds
Following MLB’s official feed, the feed of the Fan Cave and of MLB Network are good follows not because they are giving you anything new (they usually aren’t), but because they will alert and link to good plays, interesting contests and sweepstakes, let you know what is going to be on TV, etc. On local levels, this is also true for the official feeds of individual teams.
The Funniest Twitter Feeds
Not every feed needs to be serious, or even real. Some of the best feeds are fake or tongue in cheek. Take Charley “Old Hoss” Radbourn’s twitter feed: @OldHossRadbourn. It matters not that Hoss died in 1897, he will continue to comment on 21st century events, while often talking about his (equally historically-inaccurate) recollections of the Civil War, fighting Native Americans, and life in the rough-and-tumble pre-modern world of base ball (with a space). Take this tweet from when Josh Hamilton had his historic night:
Another hilarious baseball feed is that of Not Buster Olney, AKA “TRIPPING OLNEY”. This twitter feed, which is actually followed by the real Buster Olney himself, is essentially a feed of a alternate reality version of Buster Olney. In that alternate universe, Olney is a overexcited journalist who is always tripping on various drugs and who has a unhealthy obsession with Royals pitcher Bruce Chen. He also ALWAYS TYPES IN UPPER CASE.
Another good humor twitter to follow, although it is about all types of sports, is the SportsPickle twitter.
Players to follow
Due to rules by MLB, individual teams and PR worries, not that many ballplayers tweet. And most of them are kind of boring. There are exceptions, though. Take, for example, A’s pitcher Brandon McCarthy, who gave us this immortal gem:
One of the first players to take advantage of Twitter was C.J. Wilson, but these days he has not only been joined by McCarthy but also other player-tweeters such as Logan Morrison, Jeremy Guthrie (who played catch with a fan he met on Twitter), Curtis Granderson and @DatDudeBP AKA Brandon Phillips.
Other baseball-related twitter feeds
Besides the various ESPN and MLB Network TV personalities (think of one, search for them, they probably have one), Joe Buck also has a occasionally-updated twitter feed (it comes in waves). I also recommend following other members and sites of the baseball blogosphere, like Craig “HardballTalk” Calcaterra, ‘Duk from Big League Stew, the writers of team-centered blogs, and the writers at Baseball Prospectus. Some good former players to follow are Dirk Hayhurst (@TheGarfoose) and Jose Canseco. Actually, don’t follow Jose Canseco for baseball, instead follow him because he has some of the most… unique Twitter feeds out there. It’s like some kind of poetry of bizarre.
Do you know any other good Twitter feeds to follow? These are just my opinion, after all…
The Baseball Continuum 