National Sports Journalism Center

Is Logan Morrison the first major-leaguer demoted for tweeting?

That’s an oversimplification – the Florida Marlins apparently had other reasons for sending down their young outfielder. But Morrison’s penchant for speaking his mind on social media certainly didn’t help him – and the incident is a reminder of the surprising speed with which social media is remaking how athletes communicate with fans and the media.

Here’s what happened: On Saturday, after the Marlins’ 3-0 loss to the Giants, Morrison was optioned to Class AAA New Orleans. He was hitting .249, but had 17 home runs and 60 RBI. “All I know, I go out and give everything for this team – play hurt, play through injury – and this is how you get treated,” he told reporters after hearing the news. “Doesn’t seem very fair or right to me. … They said, ‘We’re going to exercise the right to option you to Triple A,’ and I walked out. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t say anything at that point, I was so mad.”

Morrison has been productive in the NL East, but on Twitter – where he goes by the handle LoMoMarlins – he’s an undisputed All-Star. He has more than 61,000 followers, and his tweets are a mix of bite-sized chronicles of life as a baseball player, conversations with fans, and goofy asides (some PG-13).

Morrison can be sophomoric, which is no crime. (He’s 23, after all.) He can be blunt – in June he criticized Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria and the team’s front office after the firing of hitting coach John Mallee, and more recently he caused a stir with comments that were seen as critical of Marlins star Hanley Ramirez. (Morrison later insisted he hadn’t been criticizing Ramirez, though if he had been, he’d just be the latest in a fairly long line of teammates.) But he’s also been a terrific ambassador for the club – witness a recent series of tweets in which he arranged tickets for 352 Twitter followers (and their pickup at Will Call), or the constant stream of birthday wishes and acknowledgments he offers. He’s usually clever and entertaining, and always genuine.

The Marlins and Morrison had clashed before over his tweets – back in May, team president David Samson said Morrison needed to be careful about what he posted, and Morrison’s Twitter avatar is a cartoon of his face with his mouth duct-taped shut and the word CENSORED. So is tweeting what cost Morrison his big-league job?

Well, reading accounts by Marlins beat writers, it seems there was a bigger issue.

On Wednesday, Morrison had to cancel a charity bowling tournament scheduled for the next day, and the outfielder contended the Marlins’ community foundation had “dropped the ball” by not selling enough lanes in advance. (The event was intended to raise money for the American Lung Association — Morrison’s father died of lung cancer in December, after which he tweeted that “To the world he may have been just a somebody, but to this somebody he was my world.”)

On Saturday, Morrison and four teammates attended an autograph signing that lasted longer than planned; when he arrived at the stadium, he discovered the Marlins were supposed to attend an event with season-ticket holders. Morrison reportedly balked and consulted with Wes Helms, the team’s union rep, who said he didn’t have to attend. A few hours later, Morrison was on the way to New Orleans and Helms (who was hitting .191) had been given his release. (For good accounts of Morrison’s demotion and explorations of the possible cause, read Juan C. Rodriguez here, here and here in the Sun-Sentinel and Joe Capozzi here, here and here in the Palm Beach Post.)

But while tweeting doesn’t seem to have been what has Morrison bound for New Orleans, it’s also clear that the Marlins think he should talk less, in any medium. Witness this no-prisoners remark from famously old-school manager Jack McKeon: “Too many young guys come into the game today and think they’ve got it made. The darlings of the media, you know. Run their mouth, instead of tending to business. Go out there and try to get better, tend to your craft. The record books are full of one- and two-year phenoms.”

Morrison will probably be back when rosters expand on Sept. 1, and perhaps he’ll keep a lower profile. But he won’t be the first young athlete to become a Twitter star while still working on his on-field game – I’ve written before about why Twitter and sports are such a good mix, and wondered about how things will change once athletes arrive in professional ranks thoroughly comfortable with social media.

Morrison is a harbinger of that era, and evidence that it’s arriving more quickly than we might have imagined. Five years ago, this story would have been simply baffling: A baseball player spends his off-hours essentially text-messaging fans in a public forum? Two years ago, when very few athletes actually typed out their own tweets, whatever PR agency was purporting to speak for a Florida Marlin would have been fired for being too edgy.

Two years from now, who knows? Perhaps athletes will have learned to be professionally bland on Twitter in the same way most of them are in locker rooms. (Would anyone want to follow Derek Jeter or David Wright on Twitter?) But it seems more likely to me that clubs and leagues will have accepted athletes tweeting, with occasional wincing, and try to remind them of the perils of saying something in haste or anger for a world-wide audience. Media training, in other words – with the twist that the athletes will be their own media.

As for Morrison, he was uncharacteristically quiet for a while after his demotion, but then sent out this tweet: “Thx guys 4 all of ur kind words & support. Really means a lot! ‘A bend in the road isn’t the end of the road…unless u fail 2 make the turn’.”

Something tells me we haven’t heard the last from him.

Jason Fry is a freelance writer and media consultant in Brooklyn, N.Y. He spent more than 12 years at The Wall Street Journal Online, serving as a writer, columnist, editor and projects guy. While at WSJ.com he edited and co-wrote The Daily Fix, a daily roundup of the best sportswriting online. He blogs about the Mets at Faith and Fear in Flushing, and about the newspaper industry atReinventing the Newsroom. Write to him at  jason.fry@gmail.com, visit him onFacebook, or follow him on Twitter.