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Tired of mouth-breathers, Indians closer Chris Perez deletes Twitter account

Jason Rowan
| May 21, 2013

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Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez, one of the most entertaining — and sometimes controversial — Twitter users among professional athletes, surprisingly deleted his Twitter account on Monday, reportedly due to his growing exasperation with having to deal with the hostile, troglodytic and oft-unwarranted commentary from a small but prolific faction who troll his account and spew hostility at him.

Perez apparently reached his wit’s end with the mouth-breathers after subpar performances in his previous two appearances. A blown save on Saturday against the Seattle Mariners was compounded with a poor performance on Monday against the Seattle Mariners (although the Indians still managed to win the game 10-8 in extra innings). Those consecutive rough appearances apparently caused an outpouring of vitriolic negativity to be spewed in Perez’s direction.

Via a report from Pat McManamon on FOX Sports Ohio:

 Evidently that didn’t matter to the Twitter boors, who let Perez have it in no uncertain terms. He was vilified in profane and ugly ways even though Vinnie Pestano and Joe Smith both gave up home runs, as well.
Clearly, the loudest tweeters do not represent all Indians fans. There were some statements of support, and Perez generally has been treated well at games.
But the absurdity of the way Perez was treated on Twitter defies a lot of conventions, starting with the presumption that people should be treated civilly.

Fair enough. And while it should be true that there should be a presumption that people should be treated civilly on Twitter, it ain’t happening, nor should anyone hold out hope and expect that to happen anytime soon.

Still, no one can blame Perez for growing weary of it and finally deciding enough is enough. Granted, Perez made himself a target for criticism from fans when he criticized them last season and likely a lot of the derision stemmed from his statements.

Still, no matter how diligently a person in the public eye tries to ignore all the negativity routinely directed at them on social media, it remains out there and it’s probably difficult not to pay attention to it at some times.

[H/T Hardball Talk]