Virtually none of the news and social media updates regarding the MLB lockout, and negotiations between baseball team owners and players, has been entertaining. But a bit levity was finally introduced the conversation on Thursday when ESPN baseball reporter Jeff Passan’s Twitter account was hacked.
It’s possible that Passan’s account will be reclaimed and corrected by the time this post publishes and the hacked tweets will be deleted. Just in case that happens, here is a screencap of the tweet currently pinned at the top of the @JeffPassan timeline.
[UPDATE: Passan’s Twitter account appears to have been restored, with the hacked tweets removed from his timeline.]
Passan’s Twitter account was hacked by someone (a group?) associated with the Skulltoons account promoting NFTs of artist Teodoru Badiu’s work. Or the hacker was a diehard fan or disrupter looking to cause some trouble.
The @SkulltoonsNFT account claims to have nothing to do with the hack, saying that someone is trying to scam its community on Twitter and Discord.
The hack comes at a terribly inconvenient time for Passan and baseball fans, who could have news to report at any moment regarding labor negotiations between MLB owners and the players union. What if the labor dispute was actually resolved while Passan’s Twitter account was unavailable, after all of the hours, days, months, and weeks he’s spent covering this story?
(OK, the lockout being resolved is probably as much of a fantasy as whatever NFT, Crypto thing Skulltoons has to offer. But still.)
An ESPN spokesperson told the New York Post‘s Ryan Glasspiegel, “We’re in the process of addressing it.”
As you might expect, Baseball Twitter had some laughs with the whole matter, most of them at Passan’s expense.
Pat McAfee had some fun with the hack as well.
The Twitter hack comes during a rough period for Passan, who was reprimanded by ESPN for a profane remark he made on the ESPN Daily podcast about the MLB labor negotiations that favorably viewed the players’ side of the dispute.
Being perceived as supporting the players, rather than being objective, has opened Passan up to criticism throughout sports media and sports media. WFAN’s Craig Carton was among those denouncing Passan for what he saw as a lack of objectivity.
Unless Passan has actually decided to go from reporting on baseball for ESPN into the NFT and Crypto business, this Twitter hack will likely be resolved soon. Then he can return to sharing incremental progress being made and slight offers being exchanged back and forth, along with frustrations over the lockout continuing. At least there was some brief fun to be had, however.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
