A-Rod trades baseball tips for Twitter help with young Yankees – CBSSports.com

Over the last six months or so, Yankees DH Alex Rodriguez has ramped up his social media presence. He created his Twitter account @AROD back in 2011, but it wasn’t until October that he started to use it regularly

So far A-Rod has limited his tweets to photos of himself working out during the offseason or spending time with his family. Typical athlete stuff. Nothing remotely controversial. Here’s a photo of A-Rod Corp. in action:

Just another day at ARod Corp – signing baseballs for fans and managing my inbox #OfficeLife pic.twitter.com/ppVIKAS5Fj

— Alex Rodriguez (@AROD) January 13, 2016

Rodriguez turned 40 last July and he’ll be the first to admit he’s not the most tech savvy person in the world, so he gets help with his Twitter account. A-Rod told Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal he leans on his young teammates for social media help:

“They help me with social media, and I help them with baseball,” Rodriguez said. “Good trade.”

Twitter advice for baseball tips? Seems like a pretty sweet deal for the young players.

Diamond says Rodriguez tends to turn to first baseman Greg Bird for the most help on Twitter (there’s a Bird-Twitter joke there somewhere). Bird, 23, had a successful MLB debut last season, hitting 11 home runs in 46 games. His Twitter account (@_GBIRD33) has a modest 11,600 followers, but he is the team’s social media guru.

“I’m a little bit younger than he is,” said Bird, aged 23. “I might offer a piece of advice or two. He’ll come to me and ask for my thoughts sometimes, and I give him what I think.”

So what does Bird tell him?

“Try to be more of yourself,” he said. “I always just try not to be generic. People know him as a baseball player. They want to see him as something else, a person, a father.”

Love him or hate him, A-Rod is an all-time great baseball player, so when he talks, young players listen. Being able to offer baseball tips is great currency if you’re a Hall of Fame caliber player. Of course the young guys will help you with Twitter if you can help advance their career.

Rodriguez, history’s greatest monster, has been able to humanize himself a bit on Twitter, which I’m sure is his intention. His image is beyond repair, but if he can improve it even a tiny bit through Twitter, why not? And if he can get his teammates to help him, even better.