“Good luck in Milwaukee!” Wilmer Flores was in the on-deck circle waiting to bat. With the MLB trade deadline quickly approaching, the seven-year New York Met learned from a fan that he had been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers.
Flores signed with the Mets on his 16th birthday and left Venezuela to begin his professional baseball career in America. Now 23 and in the middle of a game, he heard the rumor of his trade. He would be leaving behind the organization he considered family and the city he saw as home. Moments later, overcome with emotion, he started to cry on the field. Pictures and videos were immediately tweeted, making a very public and awkward situation as Flores stayed on the field to play out the game for a team he was no longer a part of.
How could a fan inform Flores that he had been traded? The organization’s management is always first to know about a trade. Except not in today’s world. Twitter started to buzz with rumors as trusted sports networks and columnists tweeted about it. Fans in the stadium quickly caught on, and so did the players in the Mets dugout. “They’re saying Wilmer has been traded,” third-baseman David Wright said to Mets Manager Terry Collins. Collins told Wright he had heard nothing about a trade.
News used to travel fast. Now, it travels at light speed. One tweet can be seen by thousands in seconds. A professional baseball player was brought to tears by information a fan gathered from Twitter. The team and coaching staff were befuddled, with no idea what was happening or how to handle the situation.
That night, after the game, the Mets announced that the reports were actually false and no trade was finalized. Flores was staying in New York. Two nights later, he hit the game-winning home run in the bottom of the 12th inning to knock off the first-place Washington Nationals.
He was New York’s latest hero.