John S. Wolfe

I am unashamedly a fan of the Arizona Diamondbacks, currently one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball. They have been in last place in the National West for more than two years. Ugh.

So July 31 has had special meaning for me: That’s Major League Baseball’s trade deadline, the last chance for teams to freely swap players.

For the Diamondbacks, it’s a chance to trade whatever value you might have in a disastrous season for young prospects – and hope for a better future.

This year the team had plenty to shed and rumors about 10 of the 25 players began circulating July 1.

So as the July 31 deadline neared, I and probably hundreds of thousands of other baseball fans were looking to see how their favorite team’s makeup would change.

In the past – way past — that meant reading a newspaper or magazine. In the recent past that meant checking a sports website like ESPN or Fox Sports, sometimes on the hour.

But 2010 was different. The best information, the most timely information, came from that little 140-character newsletter: Twitter.

Throughout July 29, July 30 and July 31, baseball writers and sportscasters provided tidbits on what they were hearing from baseball executives and agents. This went on at all hours of the day and night.

I got my information from KTAR’s Dave Burns (@Burns620), Paul Calvisi (@PaulCalvisi) and John Gambadoro (@Gambo620), the Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro (@nickpiecoro), Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) and Jon Paul Morosi (@jonmorosi), Diamondbacks’ team writer Steve Gilbert (@dbackswriter and @dbackswire), MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors), USA Today’s Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale), Fox Sports Arizona’s Todd Walsh (@walshtodd) and Jack Magruder (@JackMagruder), Sports Illustrated’s Jon Heyman (@SI_JonHeyman) and Baseball America’s Jim Callis (@jimcallisBA).

Sometimes the Tweeters would include a link to a story they had done for the company’s website. Many times it was just a brief item, with no corresponding link (and a tidbit that wouldn’t make it onto the website, except in the Twitter feed). Often these scribes would re-tweet an item from one of the others. Sometimes they would respond to fans’ comments.

My guess is that each individual Tweeted between six and 20 times each day.

I found myself following tweets, not visiting websites. My Google Alert emails for the Diamondbacks were dated material.

Significantly, I was not too connected to ESPN, the worldwide leader in sports. Their baseball writers are behind a pay wall – ESPN Insider – that puts off fans like me. I don’t see the added value or unique insights that it would cost me per month. I could see some of their Tweets on the homepage but I was frustrated when the link took me to a subscription pitch.

More significantly – for all of us in social media – my following these baseball Tweeters involved no advertising. None. Zip. Nada.

There were no ads on my Twitter app on BlackBerry. The tweets contained information, not marketing information.

So … what to do?

Could the Tweeters include some sort of sales pitch in every fifth Tweet? Mentioning perhaps a sponsor from the next telecast or publication?

Would followers be irked if Ken Rosenthal, for example, included an Old Spice Move of the Day? Probably not.

Could Tweeters use TwitPic to promote an advertiser?

Could a brand like the Diamondbacks aggregate all #dbacks tweets on a special page, with a frame with ticket and promotional information?

Would any of this work?

Well, compared with nothing, it’s probably worth a try. Especially if folks are not going to the website.