With Shaq, Tweets Aren't Always The Ref's Whistle

CHRIS JENKINS

Lance Armstrong was minutes away from surgery, but still took time to post a photo of himself in his hospital bed.

Charlie Villanueva and his team were told by their coach to step it up during halftime of a game, and the Milwaukee Bucks forward just had to tell his fans all about it before he went back on the court.

The social networking Web site Twitter was already big, but sports figures are quickly turning it into a way to entertain, interact with their fans, share their news — and sometimes put their spin on a story.

"There's a lot of things that I can't do," Armstrong said recently. "I can't go over to Starbucks and sit there and have a coffee with 20 other people, although I do sometimes. I can't go down to the bar and drink beer with a hundred other guys. It doesn't work. It's a scene."

But he can connect with fans on Twitter — 140 characters at a time — and does so several times a day — even after his big comeback took a big step backward this week.