That’s right, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert is at the helm of Major League Baseball’s Twitter account until Friday night, and it’s not pretty. So far Colbert has declared it “Toss Your Trash On The Field Day,” reported on a fantasy score between the “Shape Shifting Faeries” and the “Enchanted Dragons,” and linked his own “Super Pac” website with a tweet that claimed to link to the “latest pitching stats.”
Yes, it’s all by design. Back in June, @mlb challenged Colbert in a game of “Beat the Streak” for the keys to the Twitter account. Colbert won, and he’s hijacked the account for a day. “Please try not to get our Twitter guys fired,” was the last tweet from @mlb before Colbert took over. MLB changed the profile photo to Colbert’s mug and sent out a couple advisories to minimize the shock factor, but you have to wonder how many die-hard baseball fans aren’t laughing over the lack of real updates.
That said, I think it’s a great marketing stunt — it’s not like he’s taking over a hard news account — and @mlb has jumped 24,000 followers so far today.