Your a Whack Ass Player

Don't worry, the above title is grammatically incorrect for a reason. As much as it pains me to put it that way, it will make sense further down, trust me. If not, feel free to send me hate mail and call me an idiot in the comment section.

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter. These are words that didn't exist (well, 'twitter' did) less than a decade ago. Social media is about being able to interact on a personal, yet impersonal, level. You share what you want to share with whom you want to share it.

However, when it comes to professional athletes these newer forms of interacting directly with fans can have an ugly side. Take, for instance, this week's hubbub over Maurice Mann's Twitter hissy fit.

As most probably know, Maurice Mann is a Wide Receiver for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Most also probably know that he hasn't been having the greatest of seasons. He has only 24 catches for 309 yards and two TDs. Mann blames his statistical problems on not getting the ball enough. Fair enough. All Receivers believe they should get more touches, so this is nothing new.

Where he stepped over the line was when he posted: "When your best players don't touch the ball in big games... #yourawhackasscoach" (See, I told you the title would make sense later on.)

First, let me start by saying that Maurice Mann is hardly one of the team's best players. I don't care what he did last year in Edmonton; so far this season he has dropped passes way too often that, if he was as good as he thinks he is, should have been hauled in. Heck, his first ever catch for the Tiger-Cats, he fumbled. He has dropped countless other passes since then that are inexcusable for one of the team's "best players."

Next, calling out your coach? Not a good idea. In fact, it's a stupid idea. The Cats traded an All-Star DB in Chris Thompson to get Mann. As I've said before, Obie was snookered on this one. Clearly, if we're judging the winner of this trade, it's the Eskies by a mile. Mann is starting to become everything people were worried Arland Bruce would be when he was traded here last season. You don't see Mr. Bruce on Twitter calling out the coaches when he doesn't get the ball. Besides, Mann should worry more about catching the passes that come his way than about tweeting his feelings about the coach (who, in my humble opinion, is far from "whack ass").

Maurice Mann, go out there and catch the damn ball. If you held on to the passes that came your way, you wouldn't have been on Twitter calling anyone out.

I know I'm a little late in talking about this, and since the story came out a couple of days ago, Maurice Mann has deactivated his Twitter account. The reason that I was late with this was that I didn't have a Twitter account. Yes, I said "didn't." Earlier today, I did something I never thought I'd do: I signed up for Twitter. I figure if the people and subjects I am going to be talking about use it, I would be in dereliction of duty to not also be using these platforms to follow what is going on. I don't plan on tweeting a lot myself (of course, I also at one time said I'd never use Facebook, and that turned out to be a filthy lie), but I will be on it in order to get the latest information I can. I write these posts strictly as a hobby, but that doesn't mean I don't take it seriously. You, my loyal readers, respect me enough to come read what I write; the least I can do is try to get the information I can from as many sources as possible. So as of today, I am officially a Twitterer... a Tweeter... a whatever the hell it's called.