Boston Red Sox
For the third act of his X.com play after Red Sox fans took him to task when Pete Alonso signed with the Orioles, Flemming said he was done with the platform.
Late Tuesday afternoon, with Major League Baseball free agency underway and Red Sox fans hoping for a splashy signing or two, Will Flemming took to the social-media platform X and raised their hopes.
Wrote Flemming, the Red Sox’ radio voice, from his eponymous account: “I believe the next 72 hours are going to make a lot of Red Sox fans smile. Wa[y], way too much chatter and info from people I respect.”
His tweet, at 4:22 p.m., was innocuous enough. But because of his role and connections within the team’s brain trust, it stirred antsy Red Sox fans into believing that something big was imminent.
Free agent slugger Pete Alonso was a seemingly turnkey fit with the power-needy club, but to sign the ex-Met, it would almost certainly require offering the kind of long-term, big-money contract for an established player that the Red Sox have abstained from over the last half-dozen years or so. So when ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news at just before 1 p.m. Wednesday that Alonso had signed a five-year, $155 million contract with the division-rival Orioles and it became clear that the Red Sox had essentially abstained again by making a reportedly smaller offer, Flemming found himself caught in a vortex of vitriol.
Red Sox fans were not smiling, as he had suggested they would be, but angry that a move for Alonso — which many had interpreted as something Flemming was suggesting would happen — did not occur. And of course, that was only amplified by X, the internet septic tank where mean-spiritedness is a feature, not a bug.
Just five minutes after Passan’s scoop, Flemming tweeted, “Twitter is a pretty reasonable place, huh? . . . I’m a liar! I have no credibility! Did I say they would sign Alonso? I did not. Did I say that I thought they would do things to make the team better? Yes I did. I stand by that.”
A few hours later, Flemming added the third act of his X.com play, saying he was done with the platform.
“I’m all set with this platform. I will miss hearing from — and talking to — so many Red Sox fans and friends,” he wrote at 6:32 p.m. “But it has gotten so toxic and negative, it’s not really worth engaging. I thank all of you for being my friends on here and look forward to [talking] to you on the air.”
Friday morning, I caught up with Flemming, who, after a couple of days to clear his head, said he understood fans’ frustrations, but remained taken aback at becoming a lightning rod.
“I’ve been a part of Twitter back and forth plenty of times, just never anything like the acceleration of this one, the volume of it,’’ he said. “The real spitefulness behind all of it makes me believe so much of what you read about that site, and that so much of it is just not driven by real human beings.”
Flemming acknowledged that he wished he had not put the specific 72-hour timeframe in his tweet.
“Not to let nuance or facts get in the way, but anybody who reads my original post, I didn’t guarantee anything,” he said. “I didn’t say any one specific player would be signed.
“If there is anything to be learned, it’s that because I am connected to the team, because I talk to a lot of people who are in positions to have knowledge, even when I make a general statement about how I think good things are going to happen, people take that to mean I must know something’s happening immediately. And when it doesn’t, that must mean I’ve been gaslighting and lying to people.”
Flemming said he probably will still check X for the news-breaking, the site’s one redeeming value amid all the swill.
“I do respect that reporters post on there with things that are interesting that I probably should know about in real time-ish,’’ he said.
(This writer’s counterpoint: Everyone with a conscience should abandon the site, especially news-breaking reporters.)
Flemming said he understands that the frustrated responses from real Red Sox fans is a glimpse into the anxiety the fanbase feels while wondering when or if ownership and the front office will pay the going rate for established veteran stars again.
“There is definitely a collective desire among Red Sox fans for the team to do a little more, to get back to winning championships, to spend a little more,” he said. “I do think the level of vitriol in a reaction over one player speaks to the idea that people just really are hungry for a big swing from this club.”
He’s not predicting anything specific, and he’s certainly not posting it on X, let alone with a timeframe.
But he does believe the ballclub will make moves that have fans smiling, rather than rage-posting on social media.
“I still think that big move will happen,” he said, “but in its own different way. I still feel the same way about those sentiments. I think they’re going to make the team better. I think people will be happy.”
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