Brett Lawrie Takes Swing at Blue Jays Fans on Twitter; Deletes Tweet

At 13-23, the Blue Jays have been the biggest disappointment in baseball this season, due to some lofty preseason expectations. It all began unraveling quickly, with Jose Reyes injuring his leg the second week of the season in Kansas City. Pitchers R.A. Dickey, Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle — each acquired via trade in the offseason — all have struggled to adapt to the American League.

The Jays’ began to fray even more last week when its teams broadcast analysts openly accused Red Sox starter Clay Buchholz of doctoring the baseball.

Toronto fans, who haven’t had much to cheer about since the team won the World Series in 1993, aren’t very thrilled with these developments.

The natural progression here is for a player to take a shot at the grumbling fans on Twitter, which is what Brett Lawrie did Wednesday writing this, which has since been deleted but was documented by the Toronto Star.

"“All u people who chirp when things don’t go good have never done anything in pro sport .. Ever. So shut ur mouths #LetsGetThisThingg #jays”"

Maybe that’s an okay sentiment to tell fans if, say, you’re The Rock cutting a WWF promo circa 2001. Writing something like that goes over decidedly worse when you’re an oft-injured third baseman batting .179 in 84 at bats.

On his radio show, Jays’ analyst Gregg Zaun suggested Lawrie ought to get off Twitter entirely and delete his account. Lawrie responded by basically paraphrasing an old line from Eric Cartman.

"“@greggzaun I should get off twitter? .. I’ll do wat I want actually .. #TakeCareNow.”"

Lawrie again deleted this tweet. Fortunately the 23-year-old British Columbia native has kept his Twitter account active, which is a good thing. The fans of Toronto need to read his valuable retweets, like this gem from something called “Life As a Bro.”

Eventually when the Toronto media caught up with Lawrie to ask him about taking a swipe at Jays’ fans, he took the route many modern athletes do, saying that it fuels him to do better.

"“It ignites me. That’s what it’s always done. People that are going against me or coming at me . . . I guess I could say it just fuels my fire and puts a smile on my face because I know I’m going to come back and I know I’m here to help my team. It doesn’t bother me, really . . . if people have a problem with it I guess it’s their own problem.”"

An abstract, non-bro related thought: an athlete dropping the “have you ever played line” toward the fans ever worked out in his or her favor?

[Via Toronto Star]