Earlier this week the Pirates announced that they would not be signing their first round, eight overall pick Mark Appel the right-handed pitcher out of Stanford University. I decided not to write anything about the no-sign earlier because it was the biggest news at the time so I figured you could get some much better perspective from someone who knows more about the guy then I do. I'm not writing this post to tell you about Appel's curve-ball or his mid to high 90's fastball with movement, but rather to tell you how you should be treating Mark Appel, particularly on twitter because most people are not doing it the right way."you're a fucking piece of shit... Break your arm dick."
"Hey buddy, fuck you. 3 million wasn't enough? You'll be making millions in a few years. You and Boras can go kill yourselves."
"As a Pirates fan I hope your arm blows out.#Godhatesgreed"
"hope u get hit by a car on your birthday you piece of shit"
See that, those are all actual tweets sent to Mark Appel since he decided not to sign, I didn't make up a single letter of anything you just read. These are tweets sent to the same guy who just hours earlier posted things like Jeremiah 29:11 meaning For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. The same guy who immediately thanked thanked the Pirates organization and their FANS after he decided not to sign. The same guy that did absolutely nothing to the Pirates warranting anything close to what he recieved
Let me ask you this, was this your decision to make? Was it your life on line? Were you the one that was going to be receiving the payout of this contract? For about 99.9% of you the answer to all three of these questions is no, which means what you care or what you say he should of done means nothing. This was the biggest decision of his life and it could turn out to be a bad move for him and we just don't know that yet, but to say to him you hope he throws out his arm or even hope that he kills himself might be some of the stupidest things I have ever heard.
I'm sure most of the people who said these things probably don't actually hope he throws out his arm or goes and kill's himself but the fact that people care this much about a pitcher who might turn out to be nothing is pretty stupid. Let me remind you that baseball is just a game, and means just about nothing when it comes down to it. I am a huge Pirates fan and will always be one, but if the Pirates didn't win another game for the rest of time how many people would it seriously effect? The answer is not many, so stop wasting your time by threatening a college kid and praying he turns out to be a bust because, how is that going to help you? Instead send this kid a tweet wishing him luck or tell him your disappointed he didn't sign but you understand why because that's how you should really feel about this whole thing
When I started this post I wasn't really sure where I was going with it or what real point I was trying to get across because to be honest I was just kind of mad. Mad that people were treating this guy like a robot, not a human. Maybe I get a little to worked up about this subject and maybe that's okay but when I saw all these tweets being sent to Mark Appel I was actually ashamed to be a Pirates fan. Not ashamed because this team hasn't won in nineteen years or because we lose just about every time we play in Milwaukee but because this one guy might think that all Pirates fans are idiots, when that's not the case at all. Whenever I read these tweets I didn't not want to be a Pirates fan because that's just who I am and I can't hide that but for a second I didn't want to be associated with the group of people that I'm around every time I go to a game and sit in the stands. It's about three days after the majority of this hate has happened so it has settled down pretty well for the most part, and now some people are actually wishing this guy the best which is a nice thing to see but next time Pittsburgh has a situation like the one we had on Friday I hope they handle it differently.
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