1. One of the worst days of the year to be on the internet and social media is April 1. Uncreative and unoriginal people try to get you with lame April Fool’s pranks that are never funny, and it’s just painful.
Athletes are especially bad at this, tweeting that they've retired or been traded. It's brutal.
This year, April 1 falls on a Saturday, so the antics won’t be as prevalent, but there is an added twist. Elon Musk has decided that the day to take away everyone’s blue check mark to signal a verified Twitter account will be April Fool’s Day.
On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue here: https://t.co/gzpCcwOpLp
— Twitter Verified (@verified) March 23, 2023
Organizations can sign up for https://t.co/RlN5BbuGA3…
An individual can get a blue check mark if you pay for Twitter Blue. But if you don’t play for Twitter Blue, no check mark for you!
Meanwhile, Musk is charging organizations $1,000 a month to get verified.
ESPN told Awful Announcing that the company won’t be paying for its employees to subscribe to Twitter Blue.
Sports Illustrated won’t be paying the $1,000 a month, either.
Meanwhile, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says he’s a subscriber to Twitter Blue, but it’s done nothing for him.
@elonmusk , question for you. I'm losing about 500 to 1k users a day. To counter this I went Blue² thinking it gave me some preference and would help retain or grow users. Any suggestions ?
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 31, 2023
So let me explain how all this can play out. The top news breakers in sports, such as Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport, Ken Rosenthal, Adrian Wojnarowski and Andrew Marchand, won’t have blue check marks (unless they pay).
But some random Joe Schmo can pay for Twitter Blue, get a blue check mark and make a username very similar to those people I just mentioned and tweet out “news” in hopes of fooling people. (Think of “Adarn Schefter,” who has caused havoc before on Twitter.)
Now, I’ve always said I love the fake accounts and subsequent outrage they would cause. I mean, just look at this over-the-top reaction by Jon Heyman.
Some sick fake person tweeted under a name close to mine that greinkes going to phils. Not true. Not even close to true
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 10, 2010
Sick person? Because they made a fake Twitter account and tricked people about a sports trade? Get a grip.
Anyway, part of the reason I liked watching the fake accounts fool anyone is because the only thing people needed to do to confirm the “news” they were tweeting was to click on the account and look for the blue check mark.
However, you can’t do that now, so there won’t be any fun in fooling people. It’s not going to be entertaining this way and it’s just going to end up being a huge problem, but Musk obviously doesn’t care. All we can do is hope this gets reversed once Twitter Blue inevitably fails.
2. I've been a huge fan of the pitch clock since I first saw it in action during spring training. I wrote about it again yesterday.
It worked out better than I even thought it would on Opening Day and so did other new rules. Check out these stats.
To say the pitch clock was smash success on Opening Day would be a gross understatement. We're talking best rule change ever. Only 5 of 15 games went over 3 hours.
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) March 31, 2023
The scores of 3 of the 5 gms that went over 3 hrs: 10-9, 10-9, 11-7.
Here are the times for the Opening Day games. pic.twitter.com/Vn92CPlYFU
There were 21 stolen bases on Thursday, the most on an opening day since 1907. Success rate was 91.3% (21 for 23)
— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) March 31, 2023
Avg time of game: 2:45
There were 14 violations: 8 by pitchers, 4 by batters, 1 by baserunner, 1 by catcher
3. Shohei Ohtani pitched six scoreless innings against the A’s on Thursday night. He gave up two hits and struck out 10. The Angels lost 2–1. This gives me the opening to repost one of the greatest sports tweets of all time.
every time I see an Angels highlight it's like "Mike Trout hit three homes runs and raised his average to .528 while Shohei Ohtani did something that hasn't been done since 'Tungsten Arm' O'Doyle of the 1921 Akron Groomsmen, as the Tigers defeated the Angels 8-3"
— ℳatt (@matttomic) May 18, 2021
4. If you were off Twitter for whatever reason Thursday, you may have missed everyone sharing this clip from New Heights, the winner of SI’s Podcast of the Year for 2022, in which Jason Kelce tries to get Travis Kelce to name every NFL coach in the annual coaches photo.
Today we learned Travis can’t name about half the head coaches in the NFL😭@tkelce @JasonKelce pic.twitter.com/vJGEGkzbin
— New Heights (@newheightshow) March 30, 2023
5. Angels outfielder Hunter Renfroe had the Play of the Day on Opening Day.
Hunter Renfroe, No Look Catch. 🫣
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 31, 2023
When you impress Shohei, you've done something. pic.twitter.com/7JH3oO2yAO
6. A great tweet from Colts legend Reggie Wayne.
Will y'all stop @'n me to tell the Colts to get Lamar. I have no way of making your wish come true. Hell... I'm still trying to get my kids to listen to me... Let alone a organization.
— Reggie Wayne (@ReggieWayne_17) March 30, 2023
7. The newest SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast features an interview with WWE superstar Cody Rhodes, who will main-event WrestleMania 39 this weekend with Roman Reigns.
Rhodes talks about whether he ever thought he’d main-event WrestleMania, his relationship with his father, the legendary Dusty Rhodes, why he feels like he’s already been carrying the company, winning over WWE fans who wanted Sami Zayn to main-event ‘Mania with Reigns, what leaving and returning to the WWE did for him, his relationship with HHH, what his wife, Brandi, is up to these days, his tour bus versus Reigns’s tour bus, Paul Heyman and much more.
Following Rhodes, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, we discuss the movie Air, some of the proposed NFL TV and rules changes, a LeBron James quote, what Jimmy is riveted about these days, baseball’s various streaming services and more.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.
