Hurd By The Bay

BarryZito: Thinking Twittering is for twits!

Before I begin, a disclaimer: The above is NOT a Twitter post by the Giants' $126 million man. The 2002 Cy Young Award winner quit using tweets to toot his totally tubular totality a while ago (and Barry, from all of us who still consider the written word something of importance, thanks). But I gotta believe that if he were still using this 21st century mode of public communication, the above wouldn't be a bad place to start.

Hell, if I were Barry Zito, that's what I'd be posting.

Nothing against the fine folks at Twitter. The company has opened the door to new and entertaining ways for professional athletes to embarrass themselves, and anything that can make arrogant millionaires look silly can't be all bad. But I'm from a school of increasingly vocal folks who a) don't have a need to know what a famous human is thinking at all times and b) shake our heads at the ego-driven thought process it takes to think that we would.

But if I were Zito, I'd look at the back of my baseball card --- or click on my baseball-reference.com splits --- and notice that since I eliminated the whole Twittering thing, my baseball life has gotten a whole lot better.

The San Jose Mercury News reported July 24 that Zito had decided to close his Twitter account around the All-Star break because, as he told the paper, "I thought it'd be better to use (the field) as my outlet." Now, what stopping Twitter has to do with rediscovering long-missing "stuff" we'll never know, but you can't argue with results. Since the All-Star break, Zito has gone 4-2, lowered his ERA from 5.01 to 3.94 by allowing 12 earned runs in 56 1-3 innings and lowered his WHIP to 1.30, the lowest it's been all season.

On Saturday night, Zito dazzled the Colorado Rockies in a 5-3 win night that helped the Giants' plight in the National League wild-card race, finishing two outs shy of a shutout.

Zito hasn't been this filthy for this long a stretch since pay phones were prevalent.

Now, putting a halt on Twitter may have nothing to do with any of this. But if it starts a trend away from the increasingly impersonal way in which we communicate and gets athletes thinking that not all of us are pining for their next great revelation, then give Zito another $126 mil.

It's worth noting, by the way, that one of Zito's best friends on the Giants is closer Brian Wilson, he of the Twitter-gone-bad club. Wilson tweeted earlier this season that he'd been out late when, in actuality (he said), he was in his hotel room. The whole thing caused a mild ruckus, and Wilson closed his account shortly afterward.

Wilson, incidentally, is third in the NL in saves.

So let this be an educational opportunity for you Antonio Cromartie, before you go ripping the San Diego Chargers' food again. And you, Mario Henderson, the Raiders offensive tackle who deftly tweeted that on the first day off his diet, "my stomach hurts cuz I ate too much burgerking." (That's the Raiders in a nutshell, but I digress).

In short, the world may be Twittering its tail off, but there is a place for those who want to stay silent, and it seems to bring with it some pretty good karma. Zeet down on the Tweet. Has a nice ring to it.