The Brian Wilson Twitter Saga

Until just a few days ago, San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson maintained a Twitter account, @BrianWilson38. Wilson abruptly closed his account after several of his tweets were published in the media and contributed to a small controversy. Let’s take a closer look at what happened and try to determine how this situation affects athletes on Twitter.

Brian Wilson was only one of a handful of active Major League players with Twitter accounts. Wilson used his account to post random thoughts and observations as thousands of other Twitterers do on a daily basis. But Brian Wilson is a public figure–and therefore subject to a different set of rules regarding the content he posts publicly on a public website. The story of Brian Wilson’s Twitter drama was first reported on Yahoo’s “Big League Stew” baseball blog.

Last weekend, Wilson wrote a series of tweets after a Giants game in Arizona. It seems Wilson and some teammates went to a Scottsdale bar and encountered some “over aggressive males.” The next day an ineffective Wilson blew the save in the day game against the Diamondbacks.

Wilson has a late night and then struggles during a game the next day. Could it be just a pure coincidence? It’s possible, although San Francisco Chronicle beat writer Henry Schulman openly ponders the possibilities as part of a blog post in which he notes that “fans notice this stuff.”

The next day, Schulman noted that Wilson deleted all of his tweets and replaced them with a single tweet that read “Warning- do not take my twitters seriously, they are made up stories that reflect my humor.” Schulman and Wilson had a conversation about Schulman’s post about Wilson’s use of Twitter and Wilson deleted his account at some point following that conversation.

What can we learn from this situation? We are once again reminded that professional athletes are public figures and, as such, are subject to a different set of rules than the rest of us. Twitter is a public website and, save for a small percentage of users, nearly all Twitter accounts and tweets are available to the general public, members of the media and all. Professional athletes know their fans are always watching (and reading) and sometimes this can get them in trouble. I don’t personally think this particular controversy really had any legs but obviously it affected Wilson enough to cause him to delete his account.

Twitter is all about access. We are reminded yet again that “all access” is not always a good thing. What do you think? Was Henry Schulman just doing his job? Did Brian Wilson overreact? What implications  does this situation present for athletes on Twitter? Please let us know in the comments section below.