Generally speaking, alcohol and Twitter are a horrible combination. When racism gets thrown in, things really get ugly.
Jerome Williams, a journeyman pitcher, certainly knows all about bigoted baseball supporters. The Angels pitcher blew Tuesday night's game against the Dodgers, and heard all about it from narrow-minded social media users. Williams, for example, was called a vile racial name by a Twitter follower.
Rather than exploding in a fit of anger, Williams chose to take the high road.
"You've got some ignorant people out there," Williams explained to the Los Angeles Times. "I went through so much stuff like that when I was growing up -- it doesn't bother me any more. It did kind of tick me off, and when I was younger, I used to lash out, wanting to fight every time. Now, knowing what's going on, I won't lash out. Just be the bigger man and walk away."
Williams has been around the professional baseball block and then some. With big league stops including San Francisco, Chicago (Cubs), Oakland, Washington, Minnesota and Anaheim. He also has pitched in the Golden Baseball League, Puerto Rico and Taiwan.
Halos teammate LaTroy Hawkins says all you can do is reweet the message and let your followers get him. That's exactly what Williams did, before blocking the racist dope whose account has since been deleted.
One of Williams' 4,497 followers claimed to find the bigoted message-sender's hometown, profession (landscaping) and work number, which the Angels pitcher retweeted.
-- Follow Ben Maller on Twitter @BenMaller.
