Over the last week, Center Moriches Athletic Director Jeremy Thode has taken to Twitter to capture the spirit, heart and every move of the Red Devils’ baseball team on their way to a New York State championship.
Perhaps I’m biased because I appreciate good social media and digital story telling, but as someone who lives and breathes Suffolk County sports content and digital media, it’s worth talking about what Thode has done the last week as he followed his school’s most historic baseball season yet.
Some folks see social media as some what of an annoyance, others embrace its power to promote positive and impactful news so others can learn, grow and feel engaged. Thode gets it and here’s why: for more than 72 hours he shared almost every meaningful moment from practices to inning-by-inning recaps to celebratory imagery.
If you couldn’t make it to Binghamton for the semifinals and championship, the best spot to find info on the games was his Twitter account, @RDEVILATHLETICS.
This is what I’m talking about …
It started with highlighting the bus ride from Center Moriches to Binghamton, a 4.5 hour ride without traffic, which is almost impossible because this is Long Island and there is always traffic.
He captured their practice session at a nearby high school once they arrived.
There were dozens of posts just from practice, like this one.
It carried over to indoor batting practice prior to the semifinal match-up.
This is where he started shooting video and flexing the multimedia.
It was on to the field for the game where he immediately went for the landscape stadium shot.
Warm ups and handshakes for pre-game? Yeah, he got that too.
Game time. The Red Devils and Thode were ready.
With dozens and dozens of in-game tweets about the play-by-play and score, I’ll just put one here as an example. But go to the account to see full recaps of both games.
The mandatory team collage to remember the semifinal win forever.
Sharing and retweeting posts from Section XI, NYSPHSAA and local media like this …
Getting in on the post-game chat.
Same deal with the championship from start to finish. Warmups on video all the way to the celebratory pile at the end.
The tension grew as the comeback started. Here down, 7-5, in the sixth.
Then the tables turned. Center Moriches on top.
Collecting some hardware.
The most important and deserving team celebration shot.
Then with the scoreboard to add a nice artistic touch.
The pile.
The coaches.
The community sentiment.
The hometown welcome (seriously, how cool is this?).
He found time to thank the community, parents, seniors, everyone involved in the journey. It really does take a full group like this to win it all.
And then just a few hours ago, he started the morning off with some inspirational love.
https://twitter.com/ThisInspiresUs/status/1005818116658683904
Great job by Center Moriches baseball and thanks to Thode there will be a digital footprint about this historic moment forever, or as long as Twitter exists anyway.
