Braves MVT (most valuable tweeter)

Braves relief pitcher Peter Moylan likes to share his unfiltered thoughts with his fans on Twitter.

The Australian native tweets about the Big Green Egg, the best Aussie beer, the weather, and — oh yeah — Braves baseball.

Earlier this month, Moylan decided to get serious for a good cause.

On May 13, he tweeted: Tell me why u want my pink bat ... Good luck guys

While some athletes have gained a reputation for tweeting about themselves, cramming plenty of ego and the occasional inappropriate comment into 140 characters or less, the Braves funny guy turned to Twitter to do something selfless: he decided to give away one of his pink breast-cancer awareness bats, which bears his name and the major league logo.

The pink bats were used in games on Mother’s Day.

Over the course of the next couple days, Moylan tapped less and listened more.

He gave his social media followers — he has 17,771 “tweet peeps” — roughly two days to tell him why they deserved the dusty pink bat, made with northern white ash, which stretches 34 inches. He created a temporary email address to allow tweeters to send their entries to allow them more space to write.

Over 300 emails poured into his inbox. They were inspiring, poignant stories of battling adversity. He read them on his May 15 flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles, where he would have back surgery.

Moved by the entries, he couldn’t decide on a single winner.

I wish I had 100 pink bats guys.

And then the decision.

I was going to keep one bat myself but I just couldn’t.

Moylan gave one of the bats to a 13-year-old girl named Brooke Kennedy in his native Australia.

The girl suffers from a rare disease called torsion dystonia which causes sustained, twisted spasms. She can’t talk and the condition sometimes leaves her feet so twisted she can’t walk. But the one thing she loves is baseball. She plays every Saturday morning, donning a uniform in her favorite color — pink.

“As you can imagine being an Aussie we are all big fans of Pete over here and admire what he has achieved in baseball, just as I admire what my sister achieves each day despite her disability,” Brooke’s brother, Mitch Kennedy said in an email. “When we told Brooke that Pete was giving her his pink bat, she did ask if she could just try and hit a home run with it just once, but in the end, she decided that it will just take pride of place on her bedroom wall.”

The other bat goes to Atlantan Chris Kappy, a diehard Braves fan who two years ago started Warrior of Cancer, a charity helping children with cancer.

This year, Kappy said his charity will cover the costs for 20 children to attend Camp Sunshine, a summer camp in Rutledge dedicated to children who have or have had cancer.

Kappy, 38, plans to eventually auction off Moylan’s bat to raise money for the cause, but he wants to hold onto the splendid splinter for a little bit.

“We want to use the bat as a rallying cause,” said Kappy who also works as an event host for music-themed cruises. He plans to share it with hospitalized children stricken with cancer. “We will use this bat to beat the hell out of cancer.”

Moylan, a sinkerballer, started tweeting last November after creating his eponymous website (www.petermoylan.com). Originally, the plan was to tweet to let fans know about his website and blog updates. But it was love at first tweet. The Thumber from Down Under has been addicted ever since.

“I can’t get enough of it,” Moylan, 32, says of tweeting. “When I am watching the game, it’s the perfect chance to give my perspective.”

He recently tweeted: Find me a better catching duo than McCann and Ross??? Ever??

One of the most upbeat Braves players in the clubhouse, he also doesn’t mind poking fun at himself.

I’m best known for my elaborate dance maneuvers!!!! Probably why my back is jacked!!

For Moylan, who expects to be recuperating until late August or September, tweeting has a been a great way to stay connected to fans while he’s on the disabled list.

Moylan said he “thinks before he tweets” to avoid saying anything off the cuff that could get him trouble.

“You can be smart and not write anything controversial,” he said. “It’s not hard to know what is right and wrong.”

Moylan’s twittering antics come at a time when a string of athletes have shown poor judgment when they let their fingers tweet. Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall recently found himself in hot water after he questioned Osama bin Laden’s guilt in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

There have been plenty of other examples suggesting athletes and Twitter are a risky mix.

Moylan likes to bring smiles with his tweets and he resists the urge to tweet just for tweeting sake. “If I am playing Xbox, I won’t say, ‘I am playing Xbox again ... for the fourth hour,’ ” he said.

Just before his recent surgery, to repair a bulging disc in his lower back, No. 58 tweeted a photo of himself donning a hospital gown and ocean blue surgical cap.

Moylan said the vast number of his tweet peeps are baseball fans who simply want to chat about the game.

Occasionally, he gets a crass comment. He ignores most of them. But when one tweeter, using profanity, asked if a particular Braves player was a jerk, Moylan simply responded: not one bit.

When a fan recently asked for some “pro advice” on getting on the Kiss Cam in between innings at Turner Field, Moylan was happy to tweet a tip: make out the whole time and you are bound to get noticed.

Moylan’s tweeting popularity shows how this powerful tool of communication, if used correctly, can go a long way in building a fan base.

For Kappy, who has been a loyal Braves fan, following Moylan’s every tweet and winning the bat makes him an even bigger Braves — and Moylan — fan.