You know that warning that every career counselor gives to their high school charges these days about making sure to have a "professional-sounding" email address? Because no responsible adult wants to associate with someone who refers to themselves as gandalfswand_69@hotmail.com or JTsexxxygirlfrend_0x0@yahoo.com?
Someone should give major league players on Twitter the same warning, because when you see a tweet like this...
.@SUGASHANE43 is listed at 5-foot-9, 165 lbs., and none of that means anything in the #postseason: http://t.co/pyjjHDiXI6
— MLB (@MLB) October 16, 2013
...you think two things: who the &*$# is "@SUGASHANE43"? And, why does he have such a stupid Twitter handle? (It's Shane Robinson, by the way. Not Shane Victorino, which, considering his Hawaiian heritage, might have made a little more sense.)
While most ballplayers are smart enough to base their Twitter handle on some form of their name (e.g., @ShaneVictorino or @ClaytonKersh22), there are way too many out there stuck in that land or ridiculous and/or opaque.
Here are a few more juvenile/strange/confusing/etc. Twitter handles from just this year's playoff teams, in increasing order of ridiculousness. Remember, this represents only ten of the league's thirty clubs. All handles are verified and can be found on the official team websites.
- @dnavs33 - Daniel Nava. Did Nava really need to change that one character in his name? Or did his finger just slip on the keyboard when he created his account?
- @baueroutage - Trevor Bauer. This isn't too bad since the handle is based on a pretty common phrase. Still, it obscures the player's name and does give off a bit of a "Really?" vibe.
- @TheJK_Kid - Jason Kipnis. Again, this isn't all that bad, but it's not really helpful in identifying who the player is.
- @theRealDubi22 - Felix Doubront. I'm going to guess that Doubront is affectionately known as "Dubi" to his pals. That doesn't prevent the obvious entendre from sticking out. At least he doesn't wear #420 as well.
- @15Lasershow - Dustin Pedroia; @Shredderpunto - Nick Punto. Pedroia and Punto use their nicknames in their Twitter handles, which is pretty normal. Too bad they're such terrible nicknames.
- @GrillCheese49 - Jason Grilli. I actually really like this Twitter handle, but it is clearly on the sophomoric side of things.
- @Dutch_Oven45 - Derek Holland. Though not nearly as sophomoric as Holland's.
- @datdudeBP - Brandon Phillips. I understand that Phillips has this whole "Dat Dude" thing going on. I still have a hard time accepting this Twitter handle.
- @sweetswingin20 - Matthew Joyce; @bringerofrain20 - Josh Donaldson. Did Joyce and Donaldson fight over who got the cooler Twitter handle to attach their shared jersey number to? Both handles are great on their own, but they definitely stand out when used in the matter of fact tweets @MLB tends to use.
- @FlavaFraz21 - Todd Frazier; @wudeydo34 - A.J. Burnett. I don't want to call these the "worst" Twitter handles in baseball, but I'm not sure what other word to use. I'm inclined to put Frazier's @FlavaFraz21 at the "top" of the list thanks to its dated and silly reference (and how it's impossible to guess who it represents) but Burnett's handle is practically nonsensical. He'd almost be better off using @Zzyzx.