Athletes don’t have the write stuff

Tweeting is a great technology if:

A: You’re a college kid with nothing else to do.

B: You’re dead with nothing else to do.

C: You’re a narcissist with an uncanny need to be heard.

As a needy narcissist myself, I can tell you that there is nothing so divinely unnecessary as a good Twitter message, also known as a tweet. The hyper-short missives are like reading People magazine one sentence fragment at a time, with long delays in between to let your brain recover.

They also remind me of the elegant scribbles you encounter on the walls of urban restrooms.

Some of the greatest tweeters of our time are LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal. Like Shakespeare, those two wordsmiths are changing the language as we know it.

And, from their success, I guess we can conclude that the English language did not need to be so darned sophisticated — belabored by syntax, grammar or even proper spelling. In fact, I think superstar athletes are doing for modern English exactly what Twain did, peeling back an unnecessary veneer to expose the humanity within.

I am only 100% kidding about this.

Anyway, sports fans like us might wish that sports tweets — silly messages by senseless people — began long ago. Then you might have seen Twitter messages such as these:

Babe Ruth: They traded me where?

Ty Cobb: Sociopaths are people too, you know

Joe DiMaggio: I met this blond today …

Ernie Banks: Let’s play several.

Wrong-Way Riegels: I swear, that looked like their end zone to me.

Steve Bartman: This game is sooooo in the bag. Wait … oops.

Fred Merkle: Heck, I thought my game was over too.

Yogi Berra: Be sure to go to lots of funerals, so they will come to yours.

Cassius Clay: Did any of you ever see me as a Muslim?

Joe Namath: The Jets will win. I guarantee it.

Shoeless Joe Jackson: The White Sox will lose. I guarantee it.

Robert Irsay: Hasta la vista, Baltimore!

Walter O’Malley: Bite me, Brooklyn!

Al Davis: Thank you, Irwindale!

Don Larsen: You know, I feel pretty good today.

Bobby Thomson: With that rookie on deck, I didn’t want to blow it.

Willie Mays: Say hey!

Cy Young: How come nobody knows who I am?

Rogers Hornsby: It’s Rogers, with an “s.” Don’t ask me why.

Leon Spinks: Anybody out there read the new Graham Greene novel?

John Matuszak: Burp. I think I just ate a bar stool.

Michael Jordan: Know what I’m really good at? Baseball.

James Naismith: Anybody have a couple of peach baskets I could borrow?

Satchel Paige: I’m 44. Again.

Bill Murray: So I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama.

George Halas: That Lombardi can kiss my T-formation.

Vince Lombardi: Winning isn’t everything. Real estate is everything.

Morganna the Kissing Bandit: Hey, I got to second base last night!

Man O’ War: How come I never get to second base?

Wilt Chamberlain: 2,000 women? Heck, that was just this morning.

Kirk Gibson: I’m too hobbled to play today. But I might be able to pinch hit.

Brooks Robinson: The secret to backhanding ground balls is …

Wayne Gretzky: The secret to scoring goals is …

Dick Butkus: Geez, I’m not even the best rookie on this team.

Leon Spinks: I especially like the way Greene deals with the ambivalence of modern life.

Man O’ War: Never mind earlier Tweet. They just explained retirement.

Keith Jackson: Whoa, Nellie!

Dick Lane: Hey, that’s my line!

Howard Cosell: Just tell it like it is, Dick.

Don Meredith: Hey, Howard, who’s Fred Merkle?

Marilyn Monroe: Hey, Howard, who’s Joe DiMaggio?

Jim Brown: I am done.

Reggie Jackson: I am baseball.

Mickey Mantle: I am blitzed!

chris.erskine@latimes.com