Column: For better or worse, Twitter changed sports fans and media coverage forever

My first mention of a tweet appeared July 28, 2009, in a Chicago Tribune story on a Milton Bradley trade rumor:

“It began when White Sox analyst Steve Stone twittered that the Tigers were interested in trading for Bradley, adding the Cubs ‘should fly him in a private jet.’”

As a Twitter novice who joined the app that month at the encouragement of my employer, I had no idea the correct verb was “tweeted,” not “twittered.” No matter the terminology, once the tweet began circulating on blogs Cubs beat writers were forced to talk to Bradley to get his reaction.

“I don’t pay attention to rumors,” he said. “I’m always rumored. I’m one of them guys that are multitalented, can do a lot of things. I’m not surprised. It’s just a rumor.”

Following up on something posted on Twitter would soon become an everyday part of the beat. An app we would use and abuse, curse and praise and pay close attention to morning, noon and night would changed the way people follow sports and thus the way we covered it.

If Twitter truly is on its death bed, as many have predicted since the latest exodus of employees under Elon Musk’s reign, it will be a loss for everyone — but particularly for sports fans who use it constantly from the time they wake until they go to bed, plus the occasional 3 a.m. bathroom break.

Sadly, it won’t be immediately replaced, leaving us without the nostalgic memes from @Super70sSports, the latest unfiltered thoughts of @KyrieIrving or the high school buzzer-beater filmed by someone in the stands that went viral.

Influencers will have no one to influence, trolls will go unblocked and brand-name sports media stars will be left in a lurch. If a “Woj bomb” falls in an empty Twittersphere with no one around to retweet it, would it still make a sound?

How did it comes to this?

Back in 2009, before I realized Twitter would be such a game-changer in my profession, I ran into Jack Dorsey, an original Twitter co-founder, who was throwing out the first pitch before a Cubs-Cardinals game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. After congratulating Dorsey on his app’s success, I expressed my disappointment for not joining in time to get @paul as my handle, as he had with @jack.

Dorsey said some people probably will delete their accounts after a while, so keep checking and maybe I could have the coveted one-name Twitter handle. Alas, @paul is hanging on to the bitter end, as are @paulsullivan and @sullivanpaul, a former New York Times reporter who often received complaints about my Cubs articles because of a case of mistaken identity.

Unlike Musk, Dorsey’s goals for the social media app seemed altruistic. Biz Stone, his Twitter co-founder, once told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that Dorsey had the mentality of an artist.

“He looks at the world as if it’s a giant product that’s partially of his own doing,” Stone said. “He once tweeted that one could change the world with 140 characters. It gives you an idea of the way he thinks.”

Twitter certainly has changed the world, for better or worse, but its effect on the sports world has been super-sized. Baseball was a sport that had been changed by radio, TV and the internet every generation or so. Then Twitter came along and said, “Hold my beer.”

Instant information on your phone on the teams and athletes you love? And at no cost? The ability to let athletes or media members know exactly how you feel about them while remaining anonymous?

What could be an easier sell?

Teams and athletes mostly were on board, knowing the importance of image in selling their brand. Twitter could airbrush a moody, aloof star into a lovable, misunderstood underdog without having to deal with reality. Agents could leak information beneficial to their clients’ future without using their names. It was win-win for everyone in the business.

Joe Maddon, then with the Tampa Bay Rays, was the first major league manager to adopt Twitter in 2009. Maddon was followed later that year by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, whose lawsuit over an impersonator led to verified accounts getting the coveted blue check mark that Musk rendered meaningless with a monthly fee for anyone to purchase.

When the Chicago White Sox’s Ozzie Guillen became the third manager on Twitter during spring training in 2010, Cubs manager Lou Piniella was asked if he would join in.

“I’m really not a Facebook or Twitter guy,” Piniella replied. “I’m a prime rib and baked potato guy.”

Piniella wasn’t the only Cubs manager who avoided the app. Dale Sveum also was not a fan, and often responded to questions about something on Twitter with the mantra: “Those twits don’t lie.”

One of Sveum’s players, Ian Stewart, complained on a Twitter screed that Sveum was keeping him in Triple-A Iowa. The incident drew the ire of team President Theo Epstein, and Stewart became the first Cub to tweet his way out of the organization.

It goes without saying that Twitter has gotten me into trouble more often than I can remember. Some of the damage was self-inflicted, and I was often accused in the 2010s of tweeting without thinking.

Once the “U” in the Chicago Cubs logo in a tunnel leading to the dugout had been turned upside-down by clubhouse pranksters. After I tweeted a photo, the Cubs accused me of altering the logo to embarrass the team.

One Cubs pitcher became irate when I tweeted a photo of his expensive new cleats sitting in a trash can because he was upset with his performance and tossed them out. He later blocked me on Twitter, getting in the last word.

I once tweeted a photo of the costumed head of Milwaukee Brewers mascot Bernie Brewer, which was on the floor outside his dressing room. The severed head of Bernie Brewer being delivered to the Cubs clubhouse was like a scene from “Apocalypse Now.” A Brewers employee threatened to eject me from Miller Park unless the tweet was deleted.

Perhaps my favorite Cubs Twitter episode occurred Aug. 12, 2011, in Atlanta, when pitcher Carlos Zambrano bolted the team after surrendering five home runs to the Braves at Turner Field. Manager Mike Quade spilled the beans afterward, saying, “I don’t know where he’s gone or what he’s doing. I heard he has retired or talking about retiring.”

Like gunslingers in an old Western, the beat writers whipped out our phones, ignoring Quade as we began tweeting the news of Big Z’s pending retirement. (Spoiler alert: He didn’t.)

That rush of tweeting breaking news on some topic relevant to your beat was the biggest thrill of Twitter in the olden days. But it soon was eclipsed by the agony of dealing with anonymous trolls whose opinions don’t mesh with yours. The biggest debate in press boxes isn’t about the manager’s strategy but whether it’s preferable to block trolls or mute them.

Most big-name executives refuse to use their own names in Twitter handles to avoid the inevitable trolling. Rest assured they all have the app, and they all think they have it worse than the others.

White Sox general manager Rick Hahn complained three years ago on NBC Sports Chicago podcast that “everything is negative” on what’s known as Sox Twitter.

“The glass is always half-empty and there’s almost like this momentum toward (feeling) they want the rebuild to fail because they can say ‘I told you so’ more so than they want to celebrate a championship,” Hahn said. “And that’s unfortunate. The fact is whether it’s next year or the year after or whenever this run begins and we start getting closer to having parades around here, all that will be forgotten.”

We’re still hoping to tweet about those parades down the road.

Or maybe someone will invent a kinder, gentler app by then.