For a week, none of my attempts to reach Randolph were successful. Sure, there was some media attention from the “blogosphere” and a solid following on twitter, but where was Zach?
Honestly, I didn’t think the above comment would instigate as much strife as it did, but I’m happy it had. The consequences of this statement were probably the most telling and insightful of the weeklong experience.
Immediately, the previously adoring fans began to bombard the twitter with unbelievably hostile remarks. on the less intense end of the spectrum, one twitterer posted Zach’s full contract with the retort: “enjoy the money fam”. Now on the other end, we had this:
Look at this regular John Rocker over here. I don’t care what any athlete does with respect to his career, a reaction like this is unwarranted, but more importantly, disturbing, deplorable, and totally unacceptable.
I understand that fans are hurt when players don't want to play for their teams, they take it personally. For "Zach to want out" and in the manner it appeared to be sought, it was threatening to the fans.
About three hours after posting the comment, I got a call from a friend who asked if I had seen the reaction to the comment. I informed him I hadn't, he sent me an assortment of links regarding trade rumors and Zach Randolph instigated by my comment.
It had worked. The official blogs for the Phoenix Suns (an avid twittering team), and Clippers
posted stories about it. It even reached as far as the Los Angeles Times Clipper beat writer who did some research into the matter.
It turned out that the Assistant General Manager of the Clippers, Neil Olshey, called Zach
Randolph’s agent in an effort to resolve the (apparently) disgruntled player’s trade demands.
His agent then called Zach to see what was going on, since the agent himself had not caught word of this twitter yet.Zach was apparently angered at first, but that was subdued when his teammates checked out the twitter and started cracking jokes about it. And then…Zach Responded:
That’s just crazy…they put it right there after I had a good game against New York ,it isn’t true. It’s BS somebody would do something like that. But it’s like Myspace. I’ve got 20 [fake] Myspace accounts and I don’t [have] a real Myspace account myself.
And with that, the twitter usage was done, and my goal had been reached, “ZBO50” was no more. But the reaction i would soon receive was completely unexpected
comments, suggestions, inquiries, and hate mail can be made out to 35isntenough@gmail.com
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