If you are one who has taken to twitter--and FishStripes has to a point--MLB is trying to strong arm things to control speech on the medium, which my email buddy Aaron Gleeman has discovered.
Multiple sources have confirmed to me that Major League Baseball is cracking down on Twitter usage, ordering MLB.com writers to cease tweeting about all non-baseball topics and scolding players for their Twitter usage in general.
So if you delight in following Joe Frisaro (@joefrisaro), Chris Coghlan (@cogz4Christ), John Baker (@manbearwolf), or Logan Morrison (@LoMoMarlins) as we do here, you may soon be disappointed that some of the most interesting things they have to say will go away. There really isn't much MLB can do the players, since the Major League Players Union is still pretty powerful. I read the last version of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and it said nothing about not tweeting. So the only power MLB has over the players is moral suasion, which is just another way to say: threats it can't back up.
Now as for Joe Frisaro, they can make it stick, which sucks. The life of a beat writer is very interesting to me, and I do like it when they talk about their travels or have conversations with members of their families about when they will be able to come home.
When players and beat writers interact with the fans, it personalizes the game, and that is a very good thing. MLB is wrong in trying to do this. The more fans learn about the trials everyone involved with the game goes through, the better it makes it.
Then again, MLB thinks they are selling a quality product in MLB.tv. By the way, MLB.tv, I don't live in California. Nothing against California, I would probably love living there, but I don't.