10 Great MLB Vines of 2013

Editor's note: Craig Howe is a sports digital-media strategist and Bleacher Report guest columnist. In this slideshow, he'll present favorite MLB vines and talk about some of the marketing benefits and strategies behind them.

Six seconds may not seem like much, but in the world of social media, it has become an established duration of time. Ad agencies have 30 seconds to create great commercials, get-fit-quick hopefuls have eight minutes to carve their abs, and Vine users have six seconds in which to present a mini-movie.

Vine’s early adopters in the business world consisted largely of ad agency creative directors, digital innovators and a few big brands, all experimenting with the possibilities of short-form looping video.

Among sports leagues, Major League Baseball has been in the vanguard in using Vine, and they have consistently hit it out of the park.

MLB Advanced Media (BAM), for whom I've consulted, has posted more than 1,000 vines through the league and team Twitter accounts since the 2013 season started. According to BAM’s driving force behind this commitment to the platform, Director of New Media Andrew Patterson, “Vine is a new platform that allows us to take a more creative approach to video. The short format is ideal for social media, and with Twitter's existing user base, it provides us another way to communicate with fans.”

Here are 10 great MLB vines that are exemplary because of how they connect with fans and offer insight into baseball. They also were among MLB's most successful vines in terms of total interaction (shares, views, retweets and re-vines).

Unraveling Baseball

The vast majority of baseball content we come across showcases towering home runs, diving catches and walk-off celebrations. These highlights are all amazing, but none of them is broadly relatable if you’re not a devoted baseball fan.

But this vine resonates with anyone who played even Little League.

I remember knocking the cover off of an old baseball in batting practice, and it was always fun to see how much the ball would unravel with a couple of good whacks. No matter how much it actually did unravel, very few kids had the patience to unwind it to the core.

The simplicity and nostalgia of this concept is what makes watching this video so mesmerizing.

You don’t have to be a professional baseball player to make this happen, you just need a worn-out baseball and a great deal of patience. Or, with the wonders of time-lapse editing on Vine, you can watch it all unfold in six seconds.

Hunter Pence Vine in a Vine

This video has some characteristics that usually lead to social media magic. It involves a professional athlete who doesn’t know he’s being filmed acting quirky. In this case, San Francisco Giants outfielder Hunter Pence is the quirky one, as he demonstrates while taking video of himself.

One of the biggest reasons we idolize professional athletes is because we almost always see them dazzling us on the field.

Surrounded by PR professionals and swarmed by media and fans, an athlete doesn't always offer a glimpse of his true personality. This video feels like six seconds of what it’s probably like to hang out with Pence.

OK, and it’s also a vine of a guy making a vine. Consider your mind blown, Inception fans.

Dodgers Dance, Sort of

It’s almost impossible to watch professional athletes celebrate and not crack a smile. In these moments, we can picture big-leaguers as 12-year-old kids who were skilled enough to make baseball their career. Juan Uribe and Hyun-Jin Ryu may even be acting more like eight-year-olds here.

Most of the baseball celebrations we’re shown are rituals that TV crews can almost script. Cue the slo-mo walk-off home run trot with teammates jumping up and down at the plate. Zoom in on the tossed batting helmet and more jumping up and down followed by a Gatorade shower and a shaving cream pie in the face.

The celebrations we seldom get to see are the genuine moments between players behind the scenes. But the prevalence of social media (and the ease and immediacy of Vine) allows us to sneak a peek into this world.

Aside from this, where else but Major League Baseball can you see a guy from the Dominican Republic and a dude from South Korea dancing in a Los Angeles locker room?

Derek Jeter Listens in on 111-Year-Old Fan

In sports, social media often resonates deepest when a team’s values are in sync with the personality of their fans. This vine is a great example of that synergy.

The New York Yankees are one of the most storied franchises in the history of sports. Class and excellence often have been synonymous with the team, personified by the likes of the captain, Derek Jeter.

This video features Jeter with a passionate 111-year-old Yankees fan who’s been alive for every single one of the team's 27 championships. Class, excellence and history captured in six seconds.

Penguins in the Clubhouse

It's a pretty good bet that any video content in social media that features animals will receive more than its fair allotment of likes and shares, so anytime you have a furry or feathered little creature on the screen, chances of engagement are good.

Most of the animal videos we see feature cats, dogs or other house pets doing something cute. It’s not every day that penguins are casually let loose to roam around a big league clubhouse, Tampa Bay's in this case.

It's captivating. Or maybe it’s just eerily similar to watching a manager head out to the mound to talk to his pitcher.

Yasiel Puig Splash Hit

There are iconic moments in sports we can’t help but watch. In many ways, we follow sports in anticipation of one of these moments happening, regardless of who’s playing.

This video showcases one of those moments and also happens to be shot from the perfect angle, providing an ideal vantage point for what’s unfolding.

It’s hard to believe that anticipation can be created within a six-second video, but watching this you almost want to cringe thinking about how cold it’s going to feel when the icy water in that bucket pours over the head of Dodgers rookie Yasiel Puig.

Yadier Molina All-Star Campaign Vine

It’s easy to understand why brands wrestle with how to use Vine as a marketing or promotional vehicle.   How deep of a brand message can you really communicate in six seconds of low-quality video?

The St. Louis Cardinals found a creative and effective way to get the word out. In this case, it was a call for fans to vote catcher Yadier Molina into the All-Star Game.

The best thing about this video is that it’s genuine. It shows how much the people within the Cardinals organization care about their team and their players.

Molina not only made the All-Star team, but he was also the leading vote-getter in the National League. Maybe there was some magic behind the #Yadi Vine campaign.

Josh Reddick Beard Evolution

From the handlebar mustache of Rollie Fingers to the shoe polish-black monster beard of Brian Wilson, facial hair is part of history in Major League Baseball.

Every season it seems like there’s one player who captures the unofficial title of best facial hair in the league. And the long season allows ample time for beards to grow and grow and grow.

No doubt these factors inspired this artsy take on the evolution of A’s slugger Josh Reddick’s beard throughout the first half of this season.

Of course, throwing Chewbacca in any video can’t hurt when you’re looking to strike Internet gold.

"Sweet Caroline" at Fenway

This video of Neil Diamond singing what has become the Red Sox anthem, "Sweet Caroline,"  is extremely well-edited.

With only six seconds to tell a story, editing can play a big role in making a vine work. Here, the song is chopped up in bits that still give a good sense for how the entire performance played out.

We'll give this one the Oscar for Best Achievement in Vine Editing.

San Francisco Giants Ballpark Tour

Most MLB teams have a social media game or two every year, rallying their digitally savvy fans to come out to the ballgame.

For this year’s social media night, the San Francisco Giants handed the keys over to their fans in search of interesting and unique online content for the team.

One fan went through the painstaking process of walking around the entire stadium and recording a 360-degree view of AT&T Park. What plays out through this six seconds is an incredibly cool linear tour of the stadium that was showcased on the Giants' official Vine page.

The power of crowdsourcing strikes again.

Craig Howe is a marketing and digital strategist who advises some of the biggest sports leagues and teams in North America, including the San Francisco 49ers, Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks and Tampa Bay Rays.