Tweeter makes long pilgrimage to Series

Cody Butler is a 24-year-old English major at Georgia Gwinnett, though you might know him better as his alter ego: the man who runs the @NAIABall Twitter account.

Haven't heard of it? It currently lists 9,724 followers and dwarfs the official account for the NAIA World Series (@NAIAWorldSeries, which counts 2,324 followers).

Cody came to Lewiston for this year's Series - and his experience of getting to Harris Field for the first time has been quite a story in its own right.

"It's 2,400 (miles) straight shot," Cody said, "but we didn't go straight shot."

There were some bumps in the road during Cody's trip from Lawrenceville, Ga., to Lewiston.

On the second day of the trip, which started the Tuesday before the Series began, Cody's car got a flat tire in a town so small in the Midwest that he couldn't even remember its name.

Nor could his father, Mickey Butler.

"It blew out and ruined it," said Cody's co-pilot. "Finally about the fourth place, someone had our size of tire. But every other place, people were telling us, 'We could have you one tomorrow.' And we're like, 'No, we're not going to be here overnight.' "

Cody and Mickey spent that evening in Bismarck, N.D., before continuing on the final leg of their journey - a pilgrimage that "almost didn't happen," Cody said.

With Cody short on money to make the cross-country trip, about two weeks ago, Georgia Gwinnett broadcaster Matt Mahoney started an online fundraiser - an effort that raised $1,594 to help Cody defray the cost of traveling here.

Cody said he's been "blown away" with the generosity of others, listing some examples.

There's the family of Georgia Gwinnett shortstop Jordan Tylski - who've let Cody and his dad crash with them at a rented house this week, to save money on a hotel in Lewiston.

There are the broadcasters for several NAIA teams who've taken Cody under their wings (among them Kaiser's Robby Gutierrez, who is co-host with Cody of a weekly podcast, and is also a frequent poster to @NAIABall).

There are the coaches Cody's felt privileged to interview at length for his site, among them St. Thomas' Jorge Perez and Southeastern's Adrian Dinkel.

There's the NAIA's associated director of communications, Alan Grosbach, who credentialed Cody for this year's Series.

"It means a lot," Cody said. "And I'm just thankful for everyone who helped me get here and all the teams tagging me in all their stuff - most of the fans are NAIA teams and players. They'll send me (updates on their teams) and I just appreciate everyone interacting, because it helps (inform) other people. If everyone keeps each other updated, we're all like that," he said, making a gesture with his hands to indicate closeness.

"Everyone's been super nice."

Only a select few along the way knew Cody's identity since he started the Twitter account 16 months ago - and this was by design. He feared he might come across as biased toward Georgia Gwinnett, and said he goes out of his way to avoid "doing more tweets for them than any other school."

Cody said he aspires to work in the sports information field after he graduates within the next year, and he might not have too hard of a time finding a job. Several schools, he said, have already reached out to him about working in their athletic departments.

Like any college student, Cody said he's made mistakes along the way in running the account - and has grown from the experience.

"I've put stuff out that I shouldn't have put out there ... mainly about Lewis-Clark (State)," he said. "I've taken jabs at them a lot, said things I shouldn't have, but I've learned to keep it clean. There's no profanity on the account and I keep it all fun and baseball."

Cody said he wants Warrior fans to know one thing about him.

"It's that I respect their town, I respect their program," he said. "A lot of people think I don't respect Lewis-Clark (State) because I make fun of the auto bid ... because I hate that ... but I still respect the program. I know they're good enough to win the tournament and they're good enough to do it without the auto bid. And I've always been clear on that."

L-C will lose the automatic bid to the Series soon, in 2022 - and "I'm 100 percent happy (with the change)," Cody said. "I think that's good. They'll get another tournament here and I think they're going to win it more times than not."

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Edelman may be contacted at bedelman@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2277.