When, at the behest of MLB, the Pitching Ninja account and its plethora of gifs of “filthy” and “disgusting” pitches (as Rob Friedman, the man behind the account, famously refers to them) went dark on what was then known as Twitter in April 2018, it caused an uproar.
Fans were apoplectic, MLB players, past and present, voiced their support for the account and many people took MLB to task for its part in the Twitter ban.
The root of the issue was that the videos Friedman used to create his gifs were the intellectual property of MLB, making the league justified in getting the account taken down. The outcry, however, caused MLB to rethink its position. Pitching Ninja brought more attention to the game and was another way for fans to interact with MLB. Pitching Ninja, in essence, harnessed the power of social media in a way that overwhelmingly benefitted MLB.
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