By DANA WAKIJI
FOX Sports Detroit
Feb. 20, 2011
LAKELAND, Fla. -- Will Rhymes, Casper Wells, Robbie Weinhardt and Brad Penny are all members of the Twitterati, as I call them.
They are Tigers that you can find and follow on Twitter.
"I never heard of Twitter last year, and someone from my agency explained to me what it was and asked if I'd be interested in doing it," Rhymes said. "So I told them I'd look into it.
"I had to go buy a new phone so I could get on the Internet and stuff. I had to get a Blackberry. I just had the old-school flip phone or whatever it was. I had that for five years."
Wells heard about it from Tigers minor-leaguer Scot Drucker while the two were playing in the Arizona Fall League.
"At first, it was kind of like, 'Oh, you're on Twitter?' It wasn't like a big thing," Wells said. "I did it mainly to be with him, just to kind of get in touch with fans while I was out in the Arizona Fall League.
"It kind of escalated into something big. I was actually the first person to have it when I got called up in May. I remember someone came up to me and asked me about it. They said, 'You're the only Tiger player on Twitter.'"
Both Rhymes and Wells say they use Twitter to keep in touch with their fans.
"I like it," Rhymes said. "I think it's good interaction with the fans. It's hard when we're here, we're working, to really give anything back to the fans at all.
"We try to sign autographs when we can, but we're here working. It's just an opportunity to show them we appreciate them, answer some questions and give away some stuff, just interact."
Wells said he's seen Twitter come a long way in just the short time he's been using it.
"I saw the value in it and it's grown tremendously, exponentially in the last year to two years," Wells said. "It's a good way to keep in touch with your fans and provide that fanbase outside of something as personal as Facebook.
"I think it's not as invasive as Facebook can be. I think it's just a quick, easy medium just to get in contact with your fans and stuff."
It may not normally be as personal as Facebook, but that doesn't mean you don't get some, let's say, unusual requests.
"I had a lot of Valentine's requests because I didn't have a Valentine," Wells said. "But I had a lot of girls ask me to be their Valentine or go out with them through Twitter. So that's always kind of funny."
Aside from that, though, Wells said he's been enjoying his interaction with Tigers fans.
"We've got great fans here in Detroit, mainly stick to good things that are baseball-related, nothing too personal," Wells said. "I'm actually quite surprised that nothing, even in light of any situation with Cabrera or anything, no one ever asks anything about that.
"They keep it to what directly I'm talking about on Twitter, in relation to me and the season and stuff. It's a credit to the fans for that."
None of the Tigers is about to challenge Chad Ochocinco and his 1,706,661 followers, but they might be a little competitive amongst themselves.
As of this morning, Rhymes (@willrhymes) had 4,986 followers, Wells (@UpstateBaller) had 2,563 and Robbie Weinhardt (@RobbieW19) 2,034. Penny (@BradPenny) is the clear winner so far at 6,127.
"I'm not too worried about the number of followers or whatever it is," Rhymes said. "They're great fans. Almost every one of them is from Detroit or huge Detroit fans, so it's where the whole fanbase is.
"I'm sure the same people follow us. But I would like to always make sure I have more followers than Casper. As long as it's one more than Casper."
Responded Wells: "That's what he said? That number's going to change this year, so he's going to be chasing me for a while. So tell him to enjoy being on top for now. It's going to change."
