Twins’ Paul Molitor pulls plug on cellphone use before, during games

By Cindy Boren March 1 at 12:07 PM

Paul Molitor wants pitchers and catchers pitching and catching rather than looking at their cellphones. (Jeff Wheeler / Star Tribune / AP)

Put down your cellphone and read this. (Unless you’re reading it on your cellphone. In that case, carry on.)

Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, in his first season as manager of the Minnesota Twins, wants the eyes and minds of his players focused squarely on the game and that’s why he told players Friday that cellphone and tablet use will be banned starting 30 minutes before the first pitch and ending with the final out.

“Just to have some parameters,” Molitor said (via TwinCities.com) at spring training in Fort Myers, Fla. “Down here it won’t be quite as critical. I don’t want to make those things bigger than they are, but hopefully the people out in the clubhouse, the leadership, will take care of some of those things, too.”

The NFL, for instance, allows players to use social media up to 90 minutes before kickoff and after postgame media interviews. In a game as, shall we say, leisurely as baseball, it makes sense.

“I’m sitting there the first day, having a cup of coffee at the big table in the middle of the clubhouse,” bullpen coach Eddie Guardado said of something he noticed while he was a special instructor briefly visiting the team last year. “I’m looking at all the pitchers. There’s eight pitchers. I go, ‘What’s wrong with this picture right now?’ I said [to equipment manager Rod McCormick], ‘Hot Rod, look at this. Nobody’s talking to anybody.’”

Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement encourages players to interact with fans on social media but focuses more on the content of tweets, Instagrams, Facebook posts and other posts, rather than when they’re on.

“Now if there’s a rule in place where you can’t do that anymore, it forces you to focus on other things,” pitcher Tommy Milone said. “Maybe not just talking with your teammates, but it probably forces you to get out there and get some work done, maybe a little bit of extra work to do something other than be on your phone.”

Face-to-face interaction with human beings while playing a team sport? What a concept.

After spending most of her career in traditional print sports journalism, Cindy began blogging and tweeting, first as NFL/Redskins editor, and, since August 2010, at The Early Lead. She also is the social media editor for Sports.