You have DbacksSkins to thank for this detour. It all started with this Tweet from him.
— Phil Lacovara (@placovara) June 29, 2014
Short, and to the point, this resonated around the Internet. Well, to a certain degree, anyway.
...Apparently my #BanTheWave tweet was one of my most popular ever. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity, people.
— Phil Lacovara (@placovara) June 29, 2014
It got me wondering if there was any way to find out what the most popular i.e. retweeted Tweets were for various entities. Fortunately, rather than having to trawl through them manually, there exists MyTopTweet.com, an app which will scan through your last few thousand Tweets and show you the most retweeted. Caveat: it only goes through the last 3,200, which won't cover all of the more prolific Tweeters i.e. 'Skins, who is just as talkative on Twitter as he is on Gameday Threads, with over 40,000 Tweets, more than the official D-backs account, even though it had a year's head start and is an actual job. But it still gives an insight into what's popular.
@Dbacks
I was pretty sure I knew which recent Tweet would come top here. But I was wrong. "Marshall is ejected after hitting Ryan Braun with a pitch. He leaves to a standing ovation" only came in fourth for the club, with 418 retweets. Third - and I'm not sure why this was the case - was a fairly obscure stat: "Aaron Hill is a career .439 hitter vs. Houston, fourth-best all-time (min. 40 AB)." Somehow, 504 people decided that was worthy of a retweet. Runner-up was a video showing a certain bit of soccer pseudo-wizardry by a couple of Diamondbacks, which reached 571. But blowing past all of them - and rightly so, I think - was a previous Tweet of the Week, with 917.
Earlier tonight WWII veteran Lew Campbell, who was part of the D-Day invasion 70 years ago, sang the national anthem. pic.twitter.com/JV9eteBaas
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) June 7, 2014
Around the NL West
How does that compare with the rest of our divisional foes? What captures the attention of, say, Dodgers fans? Apparently, "winning" and "celebrity". Runner-up for @dodgers was some pic of Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence, whoever they may be, and first, was LA crowing about leading the division. The @rockies go for feeble Tweet whoring: "#RoxTshirtTues: RT THIS for the chance to win a Nolan Arenado collectible jersey." But the @giants sorry, @sfgiants did have something legitimate to celebrate, in Tim Lincecum's no-hitter - and did so with Twitter spam, the top five of their past 3,200 Tweets all being Lincecum-themed.
For the @padres, clearly the top Tweet had to be the sad news about the death of legend Tony Gwynn, right? No, though it was @MLB's top one, by a factor of more than three. Apparently, Padres' fans were more excited by a late-round pick in the draft, which was far and away the most retweeted from any team in the division. You stay classy, San Diego.
With the 837th pick of the 2014 #MLBDraft, the #Padres select SS @jmanziel2 from Texas A&M #JohnnyBaseball pic.twitter.com/RNUymJ6jBf
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) June 7, 2014
Best of Brandon
Truly, Brandon McCarthy's Twitter account is like a selection box of delicious confectionery [albeit with the occasional chocolate-dipped turd]. One Tweet isn't going to cut it for him, so here are his top three, starting with his reaction to the whole #FaceofMLB fiasco from earlier in the year, and escalating to the kind of insightful analysis only a major-league pitcher could offer.
actually I think the #FaceofMLB is that of a baseball fan looking at his computer screen wondering what the hell is going on #EricSogard
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) February 28, 2014
I still think Russell Wilson looks like a Berenstain Bear.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) February 3, 2014
Is 50 Cent sure he's not right handed?
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) May 28, 2014
The rest of the players
Patrick Corbin went with a simple "#PaulGoldschmidt #FaceofMLB" (569 retweets),and Daniel Hudson joined him, with the similarly themed "Bed time. One last #PaulGoldschmidt #FaceOfMLB" (438). Meanwhile, in non Goldschmidt/FaceofMLB-related action, Didi Gregorius reminded us that "Walk offs never gets old boys...." (107), while David Hernandez also went the Tweetwhore route, getting 208 for "Who wants to see us go for the #sweep today at chase field. I have 2 tickets for the 100th #RT". However, they were well-behind Miguel Montero, who got 459 for this:
Soy VENEZOLANO con orgullo. Es por eso que estoy dando la cara por este medio.... No saben lo que me duele decepcionarlo!
— miguel montero (@miggymont26) March 10, 2013
I'm afraid Mrs. SnakePit is out, so there'll be no accurate English version from me, but Google Translate informs me that this means, "I am proudly VENEZUELAN. That's why I'm sticking up for this medium .... do not know what hurts me to disappoint!" I think that had to do with them being knocked out of the World Baseball Classic. But the bomb of all Twitter bombs was dropped by Brad Ziegler, with over 1,500 retweets
It pays to cheat...Thanks, owners, for encouraging PED use "@JimBowdenESPNxm: Peralta - Cards agree to 4-year deal: http://t.co/rkpdAO3QaL"
— Brad Ziegler (@BradZiegler) November 24, 2013
As someone whose top Tweet was retweeted by a massive 20 people, I can only live in hope. Hey, it's still better than DbacksSkins. :)