Heath Bell says social media ban is self-imposed, not ordered by Padres

I guess this explains why Heath Bell hasn't been tweeting since Buddy Black's closed door meeting a week ago, where it was rumored that the Padres banned players from using social media.

It doesn't explain why the rest of the Padres Major League players have mysteriously stopped tweeting at the same time, unless they too have something to prove to Heath Bell's wife.

UPDATE: The social media silence has been broken.  Relief pitcher Pat Neshek just tweeted about, you guessed it,  food.

UPDATE: I guess Neshek started tweeting again yesterday.

UPDATE:  Padres cutting back on tweeting - SignOnSanDiego.com

The Padres three most consistent twitter users each have different reason for why they all stopped tweeting at the same time.  Wouldn't it be easier to just say that they decided as a team to limit outside distractions for a while until they get in a groove and start winning?  I guess these three like to do things the hard way.

Heath Bell:

"I wanted to show my wife that tweeting, Facebook, I could stay away from it," Bell said. "You don’t want to be consumed by it. I found myself at the beginning of games tweeting, trying to give away tickets, creating interest in the club.

"I don’t want to be doing that. I’ll probably lay off until the next homestand."

Bell averages about one tweet a day, it's hardly consuming his time.

Orlando Hudson:

Although many of his tweets use the "I" pronoun, Hudson said he doesn’t do his own tweeting. He said it’s done by representatives of his foundation, which benefits children battling autism.

"I don’t ever tweet, man," Hudson said. "I don’t get involved in that nonsense. I don’t like talking to people. I don’t even like phoning my wife every day. You think I’m going to talk to somebody I don’t know?"

Anybody buying his story that he never tweets?  Me neither. 

Either way he's being deceptive.  He has a verified account, so he is either leading people to believe it's him on twitter or he's lying in his latest quote.

Cameron Maybin:

"I just haven’t felt like it. I never, for any reason, tweeted every day. I always do it when I feel like it, and I haven’t really felt like it."

Now that's a good excuse.

Bud Black says it's a good thing that players are tweeting and communicating with fans less:

"I think it’s great because I don’t understand tweeting," Black said. "I don’t understand why you’d want to. But I’ve never asked guys why they tweet."

UPDATE:  Everybody is tweeting again.