How can you make the Home Run Derby more exciting? Well, more exciting if your team (the Astros) doesn’t have a player actually competing in the event?
How about following Hunter Pence on Twitter? The Astros slugger will be one of a number of players who are going to be tweeting from the field at Monday’s Home Run Derby. It’s a first for Major League Baseball, and that’s saying something. After all, the NFL and NBA got more press for players Twittering when they weren’t supposed to than for actually doing something to connect with fans. Another example of Bud Selig doing something good in an event he messed up so badly (the All-Star Game proper).
What will Hunter say? Who knows, but it’s a fun experiment that I’ll certainly be looking in on as the Derby is going on. I’ve always been a bigger fan of the Derby than the All-Star Game itself, but this makes me even more interested.
The complete list of players who will be tweeting from the field can be found at this link, but if you want the list in an easier form, look below:
David Ortiz (
davidortiz), Jose Bautista (JoeyBats19) and Matt Kemp (TheRealMattKemp) will be tweeting on their accounts during the course of the event as participants, and so will other gathered All-Stars including Heath Bell (HeathBell21), Gio Gonzalez (GioGonzalez47), Brandon Phillips (DatDudeBP), Gaby Sanchez (GabySanchez215), Justin Upton (RealJustinUpton), C.J. Wilson (str8edgeracer), Howie Kendrick (HKendrick47) and Joel Hanrahan (@hanrahan4457).