Tweet Away Fans.

With baseball's regular season rapidly approaching, now is the perfect time to look at how new media will have an affect on baseball, how teams are drawing fans more into the game, and how reporting in baseball is being influenced.

Perhaps you saw the Minnesota Twins are finally beating the New York Yankees in something. Too bad is isn't world championships. The Twins are incorporating a "Tweet Board" at Target Field this year. The idea came from Chris Iles, who is the Minnesota Twins' corporate communications manager.

Our Field of Dreams

As a fan, I love this idea and I'm glad to see the Twins finally do something that isn't in their small market scheme. It'll work well because baseball is the only professional sport where the pace of the game is slow enough you can objectively argue people at the game, especially season ticket holders, may become bored. If you reference Rick Reilly's book Sports from Hell, Reilly went to an L.A. Dodgers game and timed the "action" of the game i.e. the time the ball was actually in play, being pitched, or hit and the total time of "action" in a three hour game came to a grand total of 17 minutes.

In any other sport, a "Tweet Board" would be possible, but not nearly as affective because instead of adding to the game I think it would take away. Fans would possibly miss the slam dunks, touchdown runs and highlight plays they long to see. With baseball and the pauses in action, it gives fans a break and they can be engaged elsewhere, such as the new Tweet Board implemented at Target Field. If you want to see the question and answer session ESPN had with Iles, visit here.

I'm very fond of the Twins doing this because Twitter has exploded with users and speaking as a fan there have been times I've been at Twins games and became bored. With the new Tweet Board it would give me the oppourtunity to interact with another thing at the game and during a loss, probably keep my at the ballpark a little bit longer, which probably lead me to buying more stuff and the Twins bottom line growing.

I would not be surprised to see more professional sports teams, and possibly even the upper-tier of colleges start implementing this in their home venues. The more ways teams can make fans feel like they are a part of the team the better off they will be.

I can see the Tweet Board helping broadcasters at the game as well as it may give them ideas about what to talk about while on-air with their audience, it will help fans who arent using the Tweet Board to learn more about the players on the team and give them a more personal connection with players and coaches.

This is a great idea the Minnesota Twins have and are implementing, and finally we arent getting another team's leftovers.And here's a video for those interested in Target Field.

(Updated May 26th, 2012)