Pirates’ Steven Brault used Reddit to make unique connection with fans

You did a Reddit AMA where fans could ask you anything. Were you surprised people were so interested in the minor league experience?

“I really was. I thought it was really cool. I asked my friend if he thought people would be interested and he said, ‘I mean, you might as well check it out and try.’ And so when I put it on there people said, ‘I think if you put this on the bigger subreddit, baseball, you’d get more of a response. I think people would want to know.’ It was fun to do.”

Do you use Reddit a lot?

“Oh, yeah. I’m a huge redditor. I mean, that’s why I thought of it because I had seen other things like that and I was like, I could give a more honest response than people get on TV a lot of the time, so, yeah, that’s why I did it.”

Was that an account that you had used before?

“No, no. I made it. I called it A_Minor_leaguer and you can’t change the name, so now do I make a new one? I don’t know. It’s funny.”

So you’re a lurker?

“I’m a big, big lurker guy. I don’t really post. I just kind of follow around and like things every now and then. I have a few accounts just to separate things.”

What other subreddits do you check?

“Actually baseball not so much because I get most of my baseball news from the MLB app. Gaming is a big one, creepy —I like creepy stuff — drawing, music, a lot of stuff about beer—I like the history of beer and stuff like that—so cool stuff like that.”

Was there a question you got during the AMA that particularly stood out?

“I know the first one was just like are scouts like what they said in (Moneyball). Are scouts really like that? And I gave a story about that that’s about the girl I was with at the time. They asked, ‘Do you have a high-quality girlfriend?’ They asked that kind of stuff or they were asking me who I compared to looks-wise on the mound instead of delivery-wise, which was really weird, but, yeah, that was a fun part of it.”

Faces of LECOM Park

Russell Troeller

Job title: Video board assistant

Residence: Bradenton

Hometown: Newburgh, N.Y.

Years at the park: first season

Fan of the Game

Steve Galbraith

Residency: Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Hometown: Pittsburgh

How long he’s been a fan: 60 years

This story was originally published March 19, 2017 at 6:41 PM with the headline "Pirates’ Steven Brault used Reddit to make unique connection with fans."