Bryce Harper Wants to Change the Game
Over at ESPN today, they published a feature on Bryce Harper. It’s really good, and you should read the whole thing, but there’s one section that stands out; the part where the story shifts from the view of Harper as a person or a player, and to his view of baseball needs to evolve.
He wants to change the game. He wants to change the perception of baseball players, to become a single-name icon like LeBron and Beckham and Cam. “I don’t know much about Bryce,” says his new manager, Dusty Baker, “but I know he’s one of the hippest kids around.” Harper wants to elevate his sport’s profile through his play, through his fashion, through the charisma of his personality, maybe even through the fascination with the size of the first free agent contract ($400 million? $500 million?) that he’ll sign shortly after his 26th birthday. Is this a prodigy’s natural urge to innovate or a sign of youthful hubris?
“Endorsements, fashion — it’s something baseball doesn’t see,” he says. “In soccer, it’s Beckham or Ronaldo. In basketball, it’s Curry and LeBron. In football, it’s Cam. Football and basketball have such good fashion.”
There are impediments endemic to the sport. Everyone knows about Russell Westbrook’s unique couture because he’s wearing it in an interview room. The baseball player, on the other hand, is interviewed at his locker, often shirtless and sporting a hat head that can ruin even Harper’s unique follicle landscaping. As Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman says, “We’re uniformed personnel.”
And then there’s the larger obstacle: the game’s stern code. Case in point: Papelbon vs. Harper. It started when Orioles third baseman Manny Machado hit a home run against the Nationals last September and reacted with too much excitement, so Jonathan Papelbon drilled him the next time Machado came to bat, which caused Harper to suggest to reporters that baseball’s code is “tired,” which led to Papelbon berating and then choking Harper four days later after the closer found his teammate’s hustle lacking — a Rube Goldberg display of baseball’s grim underside.
Harper has admitted fault in going to reporters instead of speaking to Papelbon directly (“If I had a problem with Pap, I should have gone up to Pap,” he says), and both men say it didn’t last beyond that day. But that’s not what Harper wants to talk about now.
“Baseball’s tired,” he says. “It’s a tired sport, because you can’t express yourself. You can’t do what people in other sports do. I’m not saying baseball is, you know, boring or anything like that, but it’s the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flair. If that’s Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom or Manny Machado or Joc Pederson or Andrew McCutchen or Yasiel Puig — there’s so many guys in the game now who are so much fun.
You Aren't a FanGraphs MemberIt looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed. We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member. 1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other. 2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off. 3. Dark mode and Classic mode! 4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them. 5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects. 6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.) 7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only. 8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO. 9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members. 10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features! We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it. In case you didn't read all that, here's the short version. Membership includes:✓Ad-free browsing✓Unlimited FanGraphs & RotoGraphs articles✓Historical & platoon projections✓Leaderboard & player-page stat heatmaps✓One-click data exports✓Customizable player-page dashboards✓Dark & Classic site modes✓Weekly Members-only mailbag✓FanGraphs Walk-Off, your year in review✓Optional homepage photo removal✓Gift articles to non-members“Jose Fernandez is a great example. Jose Fernandez will strike you out and stare you down into the dugout and pump his fist. And if you hit a homer and pimp it? He doesn’t care. Because you got him. That’s part of the game. It’s not the old feeling — hoorah … if you pimp a homer, I’m going to hit you right in the teeth. No. If a guy pimps a homer for a game-winning shot … I mean — sorry.”
He stops, looks around. The hell with it, he’s all in.
“If a guy pumps his fist at me on the mound, I’m going to go, ‘Yeah, you got me. Good for you. Hopefully I get you next time.’ That’s what makes the game fun. You want kids to play the game, right? What are kids playing these days? Football, basketball. Look at those players — Steph Curry, LeBron James. It’s exciting to see those players in those sports. Cam Newton — I love the way Cam goes about it. He smiles, he laughs. It’s that flair. The dramatic.”
Harper is right. You know what is probably the most enduring memory of the 2015 season?
The Blue Jays didn’t win the World Series, but that memory endures in a way that the final out of the season and the ensuing celebration does not. Bautista’s home run was about as high-energy as baseball gets, as close to the raucous celebrations we see at football games around the world. It was an explosion of energy, and Bautista’s flair only added to the moment. Would we have remembered that home run the same way had he simply put his head down and jogged around the bases? Maybe, though there were a bunch of other home runs hit in the postseason, and that’s the only one I can easily recall off the top of my head.
Of course, there were a lot of people who didn’t like Bautista’s actions, and there will be a lot of people who don’t like Harper’s comments. The long-held beliefs about respecting the game and not showing up your opponents aren’t going to cede their positions easily, and it’s not so easy for one guy to simply inject flair into baseball. Even if we agree that baseball would be better off promoting charisma instead of enforcing a lack of emotion, the system isn’t setup to change easily.
But perhaps Harper has a chance to influence the game’s culture in a way that others have not. Harper specifically referenced Jose Fernandez, who has no problem showing his emotions on the field, and even does stuff like this.
Others name-checked by Harper as being fun and good for the game include Manny Machado (Dominican-American), Andrew McCutchen (African-American), and Yasiel Puig (Cuban). When he mentions the players in other sports whom he wants to emulate, he rattles off a list of guys who are mostly not white. While I’m reticent to generalized based on skin color, I do think it’s fair to say that the culture of baseball Harper is critiquing is driven mostly by Caucasians, and other cultures around the world don’t share the same social norms when it comes to the sport.
And we get a great look at this every few years, when the World Baseball Classic is held on U.S. soil, only the atmospheres at the game are very different than what you see in most regular season MLB games.
The game of baseball itself isn’t inherently stodgy, and when played by people raised in other cultures, it is often raucous. But when those players come to the U.S., they are expected to act like their white teammates and are discouraged from showing emotion in the same way. And while it’s a poor commentary on the current state of some factions of the country, a let’s-do-this-differently message probably won’t be received as well from a Jose Fernandez or a Yasiel Puig as it might be from a Bryce Harper.
Maybe Harper is still too brash to be accepted by the older generation of baseball fans, and it’s certainly possible his personality will end up leading him down the path traveled by Barry Bonds; a great player who ends up playing the role of the villain to fans of the other 29 teams. But the more players like Harper speak up, the more white players reject the cultural norms that suggest a guy who shows emotion deserves a fastball in the back, the better the chances that the game does evolve, rather than simply splitting into cultural camps where fans choose to root for players who look and act like they do.
While I do think there are reasonable lines to be drawn, and that respecting your opponents is a virtue, I’m with Harper on the game’s unwritten rules being tired and outdated. Baseball needs more guys like Jose Fernandez, not fewer, and things like Bautista firing his bat into the air are good for the game. Emotion, passion, and energy make the game more enjoyable. Bryce Harper makes the game more enjoyable. Here’s to hoping he’s successful in not only having one of the great careers in baseball history, but in encouraging more Caucasians to see the game as entertainment rather than an opportunity to take some kind of made-up moral high-ground.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
funny how infrequent people recall baseball and sports generally exist solely because they are entertainment
Except, one supposes, for the people who think baseball should exist as a nostalgic metaphor for “simpler times” and “traditional (white, middle-class) values”.
In all seriousness, though, people have always been investing sports, and baseball in particular, with all sorts of political and ethical values. So, it’s somewhat disingenuous to reduce it to mere entertainment.
Who said mere? It ought to be obvious that no one here is denying that entertainment has cultural politics — the contention is, rather, that po-faced white-Anglo-conservative Stoic cultural politics are also a lot less fun, which is what we’re all supposed to be here for in the first place.
“Generally” “exist” “solely” “because” “entertainment”
“not” “a” “response” “but” “thanks”
There will be those who try to argue otherwise but you’re correct, professional sports is, with rare exceptions, nothing but entertainment. Part of the attraction for me, however, is exactly what Harper doesn’t like, i.e. the fact that MLB is behind the times. I like the contrast between football, which has more celebrations but it also has more overpriced tickets and significantly more drunken louts. I would suggest that these are all inter-related.
You added the right qualifier professional sports are entertainment.
Little league parents and coaches at younger levels strongly believe that sports help transmit critical tools and maturity. There, on-field celebration should be muted because your opponent is standing right there, feeling the opposite and often crying so why pile on? Without empathy, there is no morals, ethics or community, and teaching a 10-year old to honor the Golden Rule, to see and think about his opponent as next-year’s best friend or teammate is considered a fundamental lesson.
(And, please stop falling back on that lazy “white vs black/brown” trope; go to a little league game and see who’s coaching these values. Or ask Jim Rice or Dave Stewart. This is just the normal generational divide in expression– music, clothes, movies, everything. Elders trying to teach kids and kids trying to make the lessons work in their world.)
Harper isn’t even rejecting the little league value, he’s just saying that no one (or very few) on the field today is offended by exuberance so the self-appointed gatekeepers are clueless.
Like, it was once uncouth to vocalize profanity, call women Bs and Ws, etc. but doing exactly that hasn’t stopped soem from becoming cultural titans, making millions and getting a White House invite. Does that new acceptance represent increasing misogyny or is it just an update on acceptable fashion and art? And it’s already in decline as new sensibilities take root.
It is far more entertaining to watch Mike Trout crush a HR to center then put his head down and run the bases, than it is to watch Harper’s self-aggrandizing antics.
Harper’s antics?
He literally has the fastest post-HR time around the bases in the league.
I cannot stand Bryce Harper, but that has everything to do with him playing for a divisional rival.
As a player, I have a ton of respect for the guy, and this article only reinforced it. His comments about the “unwritten rules” are absolutely spot-on. Have fun! Just play! That’s the true right way to play the game.
Also, I loved the section from when he was in middle school. Great stuff all around.
That’s the way to okay the game in grade school. Not at a higher level.
-points rifle- Get off my lawn!!!
You don’t understand what professionalism means, do you?
Somebody engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as a pastime? In this case I think Bryce Harper qualifies.
Get off of my cloud!
I appreciated him going out of the way to talk about pitchers showing up hitters and noted that that is very much ok with him.
You want to get a guy back for showing you up? No need to throw a fastball at his spine. Strike him out on three pitches and flip your glove or something.
I understand some on the other side think e.g. bat-flipping is juvenile, but I’m not convinced that throwing beanballs is the height of professional behavior either. At least Harper’s view is internally consistent.
Bryce Harper is one of the “hippest kids around”? That’s groovy, Daddy-o. Like, way out.
Jon Heyman ?@JonHeyman 3m3 minutes ago
Mike Trout has to be the nicest, most down-to-Earth superstar in sports today. Added bonus: he’s weather expert @jimcantore
And I’m sure the timing of this tweet is a complete coincidence. It’s going to be an uphill battle for people like Bryce.
Didn’t the Harper profile author (not Harper himself) specifically name Mike Trout as being incredibly boring?
Also from the category of nice, down-to-Earth, kinda dull: Tim Duncan.
And you know what, it’s possible for Harper AND Trout AND LeBron AND Duncan to all be cool, to be icons by just plain being themselves.
What’s uncool is for someone like ARod to be so self-conscious about how he’s perceived that he just becomes laughable instead. Just be yourself and let your quirks be celebrated.
In other words, you want to hang a picture of yourself as a centaur? GO FOR IT.
Or crack jokes about being better hung than a centaur?
GO FOR IT.
Just neighing.
OH WILBUR…
I understand that comparison, but it’s not a great fit for me. Tim Duncan’s quiet, but also his style of play is just not exciting at all. He’s boring to watch. Great, but boring.
Mike Trout is nothing like that. He’s quiet, but he’s one of the most exciting players to watch when on the field.
Tom Dooley:
You certainly don’t like basketball if you think Duncan is boring. The guy is astonishing.
Harper’s comments about the unwritten rules show the lack of judgment typical of a young man. And from a guy who doesn’t run out grounders – what a shock.
Maybe he doesn’t want to behave like a professional, act like he’s been there before, or run out grounders out of a sense of entitlement, but if he wanted to play basketball, he then should have played basketball. This is baseball. We have higher standards.
I never thought I’d support Papelbon in anything, but it’s easy to see now why he choked Harper.
Unfortunately that “old school” attitude is what’s driving future generations from the sport. I happen to agree with Bryce. If baseball is to succeed it needs to change with times and that means we all need to lighten up. Its a game. My doctor, my lawyer, and my boss need to act “professional”. Baseball? Nah, it needs to get past unwritten rules.
“If baseball is to succeed”
Seriously? Baseball is more profitable and revenues are higher than ever.
ESPN is making crazy amounts of money right now. But they also realize that the changing dynamics of how people consume media threatens their future. They laid off thousands of employees and are cutting costs like crazy. The fact that baseball is, at this moment, making money does not insure that the sport will continue to be healthy for eternity. Being that a huge portion of baseball’s current wealth is tied to TV rights….it’s less assured than most like to believe.
Current profits and revenues are no indicator of future success. Baseball’s viewership demographic is starting to resemble golf’s (hence all the erecticle dysfunction ads).
That’s not healthy. You need younger fans to be interested. You can’t just assume that they’ll all turn into grump goose gossages.
That’s complete nonsense. The only thing that might be driving future generations from the sport is prohibitive cost of equipment for kids from low income families. Participation in baseball is still extremely strong, it’s only TV viewership among the young that is down dramatically, and that’s true for practically everything on TV except football. If anything, modern sports are being ruined by the “Look at me!” Sportscenter antics. Baseball has been and hopefully will continue to be a haven from that, as it not only teaches the importance of teamwork but also the invaluable lesson of how to deal with failure.
Right because the best athletes in the US gravitate towards baseball and not football and basketball. Participation in baseball is great at the youth level but where do the elite athletes turn to when they outgrow little league?
@murph3699 why do you refuse to admit that young men gravitate towards football and basketball because they seem FUN to play, and the MLB makes it seem like baseball is not ?
@hebrew did you read what I wrote? That is exactly what I’m saying.
Are you really not aware that most elite athletes never were turning to baseball? That’s always been the case for a variety of reasons, one of which is that baseball requires skill as much as athleticism.
@jdbolick Stop trying to re-imagine baseball as an exclusive club for Men Of High Moral Fiber.
Baseball will not be destroyed because a few Gloree Boyz feel like showing that they are having a good time playing it. If you think that the game would be better off if the players didn’t enjoy it, that’s fine, but it sounds godawful to me. Obviously the quality of play is going to suffer if the players don’t love what they’re doing.
Athletes in other sports did not find themselves there because they lacked the Ecksteinian scrappitude necessary to develop the skills they needed to play baseball. Those other sports require just as much skill. Jonathan Papelbon is not going to step onto a basketball court and immediately be able to break anyone’s ankles.
I’m a fan of baseball as the sport has been, so I’m not re-imagining anything. You’re the one who wants to change the sport into Sportscenter highlights and First Take shenanigans.
It’s bizarre that you think the only way to enjoy something is to engage in self-promoting showmanship.
They all require some skill, but they really do not require “just as much skill” as baseball. Baseball is the most skill-oriented of the major sports without question. It’s why Ted Williams said: “without question the hardest single thing to do in sport is to hit a baseball.”
How can you expect me to take you seriously when you just admitted that you view baseball as The Exclusive Club For Men Of High Moral Fiber, capital letters included?
“It’s bizarre that you think the only way to enjoy something is to engage in self-promoting showmanship.”
No no, it’s YOU that sees someone enjoying playing baseball and automatically interprets it as self-promoting showmanship.
“Ted Williams said:”
Ted Williams ALSO never just stepped onto a basketball court and broke anyone’s ankles (yet!). Plus, even if he
were right about that, that would mean that pitching is super easy.
I didn’t say anything of the sort. What I did was to expose the ridiculousness of your assertion by pointing out that I’m not the one trying to “re-imagine” the sport. You are.
I genuinely hope that you’re trolling and not actually sincere. Contrary to your absurd claim, I have repeatedly noted that even “old-school baseball fans” like it when players celebrate with their teammates. No one wants players to be robots devoid of emotion. That is a disingenuous caricature people like you throw out because you’re incapable of successfully arguing against what we actually do say, which is that baseball is a team sport where an individual putting himself above the team is frowned upon.
My mind cannot comprehend how your mind works and therefore I am at a loss as to how someone could get you to understand any concept. No, saying that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sport would not “mean that pitching is super easy.”
Okay, I will accept that you did not mean to admit that you think of baseball that way. (Thank God you’re at least in denial about it.)
“That is a disingenuous caricature people like you throw out because you’re incapable of successfully arguing against what we actually do say, which is that baseball is a team sport where an individual putting himself above the team is frowned upon.”
The disingenuous caricature is the human who can play a sport he loves, then do something awesome, and not spontaneously show emotion. In reality, if you want to stomp out spontaneous celebration, you have to eliminate the scourge of players loving what they do. Also, these displays of emotion are not evil plots to subvert the whole of the team for the glory of the invdividual.
“I am at a loss as to how someone could get you to understand any concept. No, saying that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sport would not “mean that pitching is super easy.””
All right, let me use a simple theoretical example, since that’s all my feeble brain is capable of. Say there was a sport in which the goal of Team A was to complete an impossible task, and the goal of Team B was to stop Team A. Team A’s task would be the hardest thing in sports. Team B’s task would be the easiest thing in sports.
It’s so hard for the tortoise to win the race because it’s so easy for the hare to win. There’s an inherent inverse
relationship.
“If baseball is to succeed”
What a laugh, baseball is more successful than ever. But it won’t be if you drive away the core fan base with NBA/NFL-style hotdogging and celebrations.
As every college coach says “Act like you’ve been there before.”
crusty old ass men aren’t the core fan base
Succeed was a strong choice of words, I admit. You get my point though. Baseball isn’t what it used to be and its not the sport of choice for kids right now.
You’re use of the term ‘hotdogging’ told me everything i need to know about you and your opinions. Thank you for the insight.
According to Sports Business Daily, baseball is the third most popular youth sport in the United States behind basketball and soccer, and it experienced less of a decline over the last five years than basketball or soccer.
I guess I should have been more specific. Its not the most popular sport among the kiddies when it comes to what they’re watching, who they’re rooting for and who they’re emulating. We’re bigger fans of Mike Trout than teenagers are. They like Cam and Steph, not Mike and Bryce.
murph3699, do you notice that this is the third time you’ve had to change what you meant because what you actually said was clearly wrong? Instead of continuing to redefine your position, maybe you should consider that your position simply isn’t valid. There is no crisis in baseball. People have been predicting its decline for decades. It’s never going to be as flashy or as individualistic as basketball or football and it doesn’t need to be. Why can’t people like you appreciate baseball for what it is?
Baseball is doing fine as it is, no matter what the street culture supporters try to tell you.
“crusty old ass men aren’t the core fan base”
Really? Who do you think buys the season tickets, buys the expensive memorabilia, and subs robes to MLB.TV? Check the demographics before you throw insults like that, junior. The hipsters and the punks don’t have the money.
If the MLB goes street culture, you can kiss the core fans goodbye. And then there WILL be a crisis.
Subscribes. Damn auto-correct.
Yeah, who cares if someone says they don’t care about baseball? They’re probably just “street” and “urban”, so they don’t matter anyway.
“Street culture”? Really? Sounds like somebody wants to Make America Great Again.
@jdbolick I didn’t change what I meant I merely clarified things because you chose to play games with words. You knew the point I was trying to make.
People like me? You and @johnston sure have given us a window into what type of people you are with your comments. I get it, you don’t like how the Latin and hip hop influence have crept into your beloved game. Don’t worry, there’s still hockey!
I don’t have a problem with the game but my kids do. Their friends do too. MLB player posters aren’t hanging on the kids walls like generation’s past. It’s Steph and Cam now. 20-30 years from now is when baseball will see a problem when the millennials ignore the game.
No one has been manipulating your words or misquoting you. We’ve taken things you said and then provided information that proves them unequivocally wrong. Instead of admitting that your claims were false, you keep trying to change “what you really meant.”
Congratulations on making yet another comically incorrect assumption. You would have no way of knowing this, but I wrote a Masters thesis on acculturation for Latin American baseball players and had a major league team use some of my work to create programs that help Latin minor leaguers adjust to life in the U.S. I keep suggesting that you stop posting precisely because every time you do, you make yourself look that much worse.
You know what’s more meaningful than anecdotal stories about your kids and their friends? The Sports Business Daily data I provided showing that baseball is still enormously popular among American youth and has actually declined less over the last five years than the other major youth sports (separate topic but overall youth sports participation is falling dramatically, which is terrible news for rates of childhood obesity). Baseball has always been and will always be a game that is much more entertaining to see in person than to watch on television. Bat-flipping and showmanship wouldn’t change that, but it would undermine some of the greatest lessons that baseball has to offer regarding team concepts along with how to handle both failure and success.
Do we really have high standards if brush back pitches are commonplace? That’s more acceptable to having fun playing a game to a lot of people. And no it’s not easy to see why a guy is choked.
*than having
The standard appears to be that violence in baseball is preferable to showboating. That may be the biggest reason why the culture needs to change.
Harper estimates unwritten rules shows a lack of judgment boys. A guy did not miss groundwater in kind.
These cells do not behave like a pro, like, or a lack of grounding in the pharmaceutical, or if you want to play basketball, then you should play basketball. This is baseball. We have higher standards.
I never thought I’d say Perez anything, but it’s easy to see why now, he drowned.
Well, that settles it. He drowned.
That’s why you gotta stay out of that groundwater. I saw on the Weather Channel that even a foot of moving groundwater could be fatal. Mike Trout could have told you that.
This is my favorite 1-2 comment combo in history of comments.
Harper’s cells do not behave like a lack of grounding in the pharmaceutical. Just look at him.
Here, here! Not running out grounders is a chokeable offence!
Ya dunk.
So a jailable, criminal act is more appropriate than not running out a grounder?
Are you real?
Well I know in my professional life if someone takes to long to finish their report I often choke them by the photocopier.
Right, old school unwritten rules like throwing at someone is super professional and gentlemanly behavior.
Check out Jeff Passan’s article from 9/29 about times to first. As a rule, Harper hustles down the line pretty well.
“I never thought I’d support Papelbon in anything, but it’s easy to see now why he choked Harper.”
Remind me again what Harper did to justify being assaulted?
He invited someone to fight and that someone accepted the invitation.
Yeah, this! Also, not enough white people right?
@jdbolick Did you really just say “I wrote a paper so I’m much more the authority on Latin culture than you”?
Let me say it one more time. I am not saying that kids are not playing baseball. I’m saying that they are not fans of Major League Baseball. Totally different argument. Soccer is also very popular in youth athletics but MLS isn’t exactly setting the world on fire. My point, again, is that baseball and it’s unwritten rules, are bad for the future of MLB. It’s not the only reason but it is a reason. The kids that are not fans today won’t be there to replace us eventually.
Meanwhile I’ll live with my anecdotal ideas derived from the teenage boys that frequently visit my house to watch football and basketball and the friends I’ve made being from Lawrence, MA, the city that’s 74% Latino. You wrote a paper, though.
I get it. You’re so much smarter than me and it makes you feel better to try and make me feel small. No worries, I got thick skin.
Congrats on having almost as many thumbs downs as the guy who wrote a snarky comment about Dave having cancer. You’re the best troll since B.ig Co.ol Dadd.y (you can’t write his name), though I feel you might be the same person.
I think it’s bad sportsmanship to celebrate after hitting a home run, but it’s very classy to choke someone.
Someone posted this GIF of Mickey Mantle flipping his bat in a deadspin article regarding Harper’s comments.
http://sports.cbsimg.net/images/visual/whatshot/MantleBatFlip010516.gif
Good sirs,
With regards to that ignoble scalawag Mr. Mantle. Were he to have committed such a brazen act in my day we’d have thrown him in the gallows!
Yours truly,
Sir Abner Doubleday
Even as the game’s function was to promote health and exercise according to Chadwick, it readily absorbed alcoholism, gambling, profanity, and fighting. All of the good stuff.
The imagined nobility of the sport is in part a projection of white inheritance. That being said I prefer this ethos, while being grateful for the inclusion of what is purported to be more fun, the more exuberant behavior. To me, Jose Fernandez looks like a tool in the GIF; Jose Bautista looks like a diva. Many who might read this will interpret my perspective, and me, as tired, idiomatically speaking. It is possible to preserve these cultural preferences and distinctions alongside one another as hybridization occurs.
However, the inevitable development is not a domain of one person; the presumption that Bryce Harper is going to be avant-garde in already existing traditions is appropriation, that arrogant beast.
slow clap.
Do we know if he was thrown at or otherwise challenged for this? (I don’t think he should have been, but the answer would be interesting.)
For me the difference between this and Bautista is that he did it while running, he didn’t stand and stare for 20 seconds. Having fun, being yourself, flipping a bat, laughing, enjoying the game, having a unique, marketable personality off the field is wonderful and I would love to see more of it, but just standing there “pimping” a home run for example is not having fun, it’s just drawing attention to yourself and showing up your opponent. If a boxer or golfer or tennis player wants to do that, I’m fine with it. Those are individual sports, so drawing attention to yourself and how great you are don’t bother me at all. But baseball (or hockey, football, basketball, whatever) is a team game, so I personally hate that type of thing. Just like I hate football players acting like the other ten guys on defense didn’t help them to get the sack or a basketball player strutting around (ignoring his teammates) as though he didn’t have teammates running the offense, setting screens, passing him the ball.
Then again, this is all just my opinion, so Bryce (and Dave) are obviously free to voice theirs as well.
Fine, how about this one?
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24691695/gif-lets-admire-tom-lawless-bat-flip-in-the-1987-world-series
I knew who wrote that article just from its title.
#bringbacknotgraphs
I’ve watched that homerun over and over and over again, and I just did it again out of curiosity. The time that elapses between when the ball makes contact with the bat and when Bautista lets go of the bat is somewhere between 1.5 and 2 seconds.
The entire gif above lasts 5-7 seconds. If you have to use a falsehood to justify your opinion then it isn’t worth considering. Just learn to count 1…2…3
Mantle may be one of the greatest but his bat flip game is weak. Jose Bautista could pimp a home run better in his sleep.
Thanks for this Dave, and taking the implicit racism in all of the celebration shaming and putting it in the forefront. Pretending that the Mick or Yaz didn’t celebrate is just revisionist anyway
Racism? That’s ridiculous. Your viewpoint is far more racist, in that we can’t expect foreigners to behave well in America. Demanding professionalism is anything but racist. It sets equal standards for all.
I think the fallacy here is assuming foreign players not adhering to some unwritten rules in American baseball are not behaving well, especially considering that other unwritten rules seem to be fine with throwing at batters as retaliation for some perceived slight or deliberately trying to injure a middle infielder to prevent a double play.
You are judging how people express their emotions. There’s nothing wrong here. It’s the way it always has been, that is in any improvised baseball field in Venezuela or the DR, from pro’s to amateurs. Go pick any winter ball clip in youtube.
I would say that your definition of professionalism and standards are stuff made up in the US by only a segment of the population.
Right. An overwhelmingly white segment, as this article rightly points out.
You certainly have no right to suggest how foreigners should behave in Canada.
Bryce is a punk, but he’s just a kid, what do you expect? Don’t make him act like an old fart.
“that memory endures in a way that the final out of the season and the ensuing celebration does not.”
I wish you would have watched the Royals more, Dave. Those guys had personality to spare.
A bunch of great guys:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/learning-the-language-of-the-clubhouse/
Can we officially retire references to that article? Eno (or should it be Emo?) had a bad day interacting with some young Royals players, who have since matured. WE GET IT. If that’s the worst experience a sabermetrics writer ever has, put me in a Bachelors’ program for statistics and sign me up.
Yeah, that one’s really on Eno. He should have known better than to bother with Hosmer, who’s never had an original thought in his life.
To be fair, if a guy who is supposed to be a professional baseball writer doesn’t know who he is talking too, that’s not exactly someone I would take all that seriously in the moment either.
Not excusing the Royals but Eno isnt exactly a poor innocent victim there (which he basically admitted in the, to his credit).
Yeah, Eno’s been over it for years at this point.
It’s just become a meme of people trying to “defend his honor” from TEH JOCKS!
Reminds me of my one summer covering the Indianapolis Indians. Ray Knight couldn’t say a printable word, and Dave Revering spit tobacco juice on my tennis shoes. Lenny Randle was kind of cool, though.
I want my team to show genuine emotion, but at the same time, what was cooler than Mark Bavaro’s touchdown celebration? Nothin’! Understated is cool.
I’ll never understand players in a sport that strive to be professional choose Papelbon’s side.
#BRASH
I suppose I come down on the pro-bat-flip side solely because the anti-bat-flip side is so unbelievably annoying. I honestly don’t care either way. I’m totally with Harper here, though. The personality of American baseball is boring and slow and, well, *old*. I’m pushing 40 and even I think a lot of baseball’s culture is stodgy. I expect athletes to look like they’re having fun. I *love* watching teams that look like they’re having fun. To bring in another sport, take Alabama and college football. If my favorite team hired Nick Saban to coach, I’d initially feel excited because I’d know a championship was assured, but after that championship, I’d look back and think “that was great, but boring.” I think that once baseball contracts started hitting eye-popping numbers 20-25 years ago, fans’ valuation of players changed to include how much they earn. Make a lot of money? You better be the most businesslike guy out there. Last I checked, I wasn’t paying their salaries, so I’m not gonna suggest their paycheck ought to be reflected in their attitude.
I think you are conflating two things: corporatization and whatever bat flipping is…
I hate the corporate uniformity but the answer isn’t adolescent bat flipping and selfcentered emoting.
Let’s take something from Bryce’s mouth (my emphasis added):
“If a guy pimps a homer for a game-winning shot … I mean — sorry.”
It’s one thing for a guy to take 50 seconds to stroll the bases after a solo HR late in a 17-2 game. Same thing with choreographed TD celebrations when your team is down five touchdowns.
But how can you not like Joey Bats’s bat flip on a huge HR in the playoffs? Expecting him not be megapumped would be like expecting a Powerball winner to “act like he’s been there before.”
I agree. The only thing I didn’t like about Bautista’s flip was it APPEARED to be directed at the pitcher. Please note the words like and appeared.
BTW – I also have no problem with Dyson getting into it with Bautista after the HR and bat flip. I can certainly understand HIS emotions being about 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 anger-wise.
The bat flip wasn’t that fun for me because it came off as macho posturing rather than celebrating.
However, that’s entirely subjective and my tastes are completely arbitrary, so the idea that what Bautista did was *wrong* is really weird.
I have a bit of a problem with Dyson’s reaction a little.
I don’t begrudge Dyson his emotions. But I do take issue with the hypocrisy of “You can’t express your emotions, but I will express mine.”
I think when you’re talking about Bautista’s bat flip and Dyson’s reaction you have to remember how high emotions were running in that game. I was in the stands and it was by far the most intense crowd experience I’ve ever had. With the crazy inning that happened before the home run, I can only imagine that players on both teams were feeling the emotions of the game in a serious way. With that in mind, to me there was no posturing at all going on with Bautista’s reaction, it was literally the most important home run he had ever hit in his entire career.
Absolutely correct. There is a giant difference between a happy reaction to success and showing up the other team. The former should be celebrated while the latter should be discouraged.
Except that it seems to me that for many proponents of the “unwritten rules”, there is no difference. To them, any display of pleasure at an accomplishment IS, by definition, showing up your opponent. I don’t agree, but I think there is a substantial portion of the population that feels this way.
It is purely an individual judgement as to whether an act is “showing up” another team or player. Blanket proclamations of “correct” behavior are better left to dictators.
I find it extremely hard to believe you actually think this because it’s not at all supported by any sort of evidence. All baseball fans like when players celebrate each other. Old school baseball fans dislike when individual players draw attention to themselves and put themselves above the team.
As a Bama fan, I can tell you that there is absolutely nothing boring about kicking tail most every week. I mean we slip up occasionally, but it beats going 6-6 and worrying each week whether you’ll win or not.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
A Yankees AND Alabama fan? That’s a really particular type of insufferable.
At least you hung with the Celtics until the 90s when you were really kinda feeling the Bulls, and then the Spurs since 2000.
NFL? Steelers in the 70s, 49ers in the 80s, Cowboys in the 90s, Pats since the turn of the century baby!!
I’m also a Hawks fan and Titans fan, so I get both ends of the sports spectrum.
Although at least I am still a Yankees fan despite our relative lack of success recently.
That IS quite a spectrum. My comment was certainly meant in a joking manner, wasn’t intended to be mean-spirited. I’ve got a wide range of teams that I root for as well (Blue Jays, Eagles, Knicks when I followed the NBA more closely, and Predators) so I’m always interested to see others with weird groupings of rooting interests. The Titans are my second NFL team; I live in Nashville and was an Eagles fan before we had a local team to root for.
Yeah. Great. I think the NBA and the NFL are unwatchable. The news that the second best player wants MLB to be more like them is the opposite of refreshing to me.
In those sports the actual gameplay has become the merest pretext for what it is all about: strutting and emoting and advertising.
Well, you’re in the minority as the NBA and NFL are pretty successful. They do pretty good ratings from what I hear. Face it, Bryce is the future of baseball and along with that comes bat flips and personality. If you want baseball to be around for your great-grandchildren you may want to start embracing it too.
Why should I embrace something I do not like? I don’t understand.
I couldn’t agree more. “Accepting”, “tolerating”, or “grudgingly putting up with” would have made more sense at the end of murph3699’s comment. Can’t tell anyone what to like or dislike.
You don’t have to. And if baseball changes where emotions being shown is ok, then you don’t have embrace or watch that either.
I’m not saying you specifically. I’m just saying that baseball as the national pastime is past its time. It is what it is.
No, it’s not. You and people like you want to destroy its professionalism and culture and turn into NBA/NFL-style strutting, preening and trash-talking. I cannot even express how much I despise people like you.
Wow Johnston, I bet you’re fun at parties!
@johnston I don’t want to do anything. I’m a fan of the sport but I’m also a fan of the NFL and NBA. I’m also a parent of two teenage boys brought up on Red Sox baseball. Guess what? They don’t like baseball. They both played and enjoyed that experience but they aren’t sitting with me on the couch watching NESN every night. You bet your rear end that they are sitting with me on Sunday afternoon whether its the Pats or an NFC matchup.
I’m just saying that my grandfather’s version of baseball is gone. There’s the DH, integration, night games, interleague play, etc. Many folks took issue with those changes as well. Baseball’s rules are antiquated and it’s time do away with them. The fact that despise “people like me” says more about you than my opinion of bat flips does about me.
@murph3699
You should be proud that you raised two boys with enough sense to avoid becoming Red Sox fans.
I do share your distaste for a lot of that stuff, but I don’t really know why I dislike it.
I love the energy of new guys, and I can see how it would be irritating. That’s why I’m fine with the old-school mentality too. I have nothing against someone who is mean and can be hated because they play tough and nasty like a Clemens or Pedro. I have nothing against seeing emotion, be it joy or anger honestly
>When he mentions the players in other sports whom he wants to emulate, he rattles off a list of guys who are mostly not white.
Convenient, isn’t it, to ignore the mentions of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Joc Pederson in the same sentence. The race/culture narrative might be relevant in another context, but you’re forcing it here and basically putting words in Bryce Harper’s mouth.
If that’s the narrative that you want to write, let it stand on its own, don’t try to bring the Harper article into it.
Excellent. I think this is right on. Bryce’s actual statements and the use to which the author put them do not match up.
Yeah, I thought the same thing when I read it. The first two names – and three of the first four – were white guys, so I thought it was weird to bring race into it.
Race has no part in it. It’s about professionalism.
Stop Trolling.
Telling the truth is trolling? Buy a clue.
Actually, yes, one can tell the truth and troll at the same time. If the point of the activity is to be inflamatory and provocative, even if it’s true, it is a kind of trolling.
Also it isn’t true, so there’s that.
I mean technically 4 of the 7 were non-white, so Dave’s use of ‘mostly’ is correct…
I agree that Harper wasn’t directly making the race point, but Harper’s point and the cultural/race expressionism issue are clearly very linked. Seems like Dave just made a highly logical connection, and it adds even greater weight to Harper’s own comments. Don’t think you can fault him for extending Harper’s point in that way.
That said, I applaud Harper’s comments even more because he listed that diverse group without directly making the race point. Either he purposely chose to name those players with race in the back of his mind, or he just doesn’t think about race at all, either of which I applaud.
Wasn’t Harper simply not making a racial/ethnic point at all?
If the author wanted to address the issue, shouldn’t he have done it in another piece?
No. It’s Dave Cameron’s piece.
Mostly agreeing with what’s said on this comment, but I wanted to say I agree it almost comes across as if Harper was trying to make a racially diverse comment so as not to get sucked into this additional mess of race issues.
That would make its appropriation in this article even more asinine, if anything, since Harper is saying that “this isn’t about race”, and instead the author is trying to use it to prove that “it’s about race”.
Yeah, I guess I could have added “Harper’s attempts failed”. I do think that Dave making points about race is valid insofar as the public view will inevitably involve race.
I think you’re missing the point. The point is not that Harper thinks this is a race thing, nor does Cameron say he does. Nor is it about race. Rather, the point is that guys from the international culture of baseball are the wrong ambassadors to the The Vanguard of Respecting the Game: that group is far more likely to be receptive to the white son of a union iron worker than a Spanish speaking man of African-Caribean descent.
Agreed this is the point in the article, disagree that your statement isn’t fundamentally one about race.
It’s about racists, not race.
As long as it doesn’t become where everything you do you must make a big deal about it.
Nothing I can’t stand more than a guy in football makes a tackle, gets up and makes a big deal about it. That is what you are supposed to do. The worse is pass breakups. Sacks, touchdowns, I can see. Those are special.
In basketball now when a player makes a 3 they put the 3 fingers in the air, so stupid.
I’m all about bat flips for homers, hell even showing some emotion on a great play.
Now if a guy makes a diving stop at 3rd and throws him out at first from his knees, you don’t get much from the defender. If he wants to celebrate, fist pump whatever, let him.
Absolutely!
I loved the bat flip, because it was huge for his team. That was worth celebrating, look at everyone else in the ballpark, the fans are going crazy, his teammates are going nuts, that was great.
I never want to see a bat flip like that become common place when a guy hits a 9th inning solo homer when trailing by 7.
The question is: Why you (or anyone) cannot stand it? Why should it matter to anyone when or how a player celebrates?
If someone does not like a players actions, the problem is with that someone, not the player.
Amen! THEY’RE GROWN MEN PLAYING A GAME FOR A LIVING, for Christ sakes…
Thanks Jason! The Doctor will continue to clarify for you.
Can I come see you about that rash? It isn’t clearing up and smells like root beer…
That’s a little……outside of my expertise, sorry.
Doctor I’m having trouble clarifying my butter. Can you come over and help?
Well, not so fast. Baseball is trying to sell entertainment to that person…so …… kind of their problem too….
I’m with Grant on this one. More emotion at key parts of the game would be great. But I don’t need the endless showboating of the NFL. Honestly, baseball is closer to my desired level of “players showing emotion” than NFL/NBA.
The thing that absolutely needs to go away though are pitchers throwing at people for what ever reason, even if what ever emotional display might have been misplaced.
Basically, slightly more emotion would be great and WWWAAAYYYY less machoism-BS would be even better!
An interesting point. However, it does not get to the issue of why showboating concerns people. Keep in mind those actions aren’t directed at the “bothered” person, i.e., you individually. Like so many other perceived daily irritants, showboating can be ignored in the context of the game.
It is a basic psychological situation. A person can come to the realization that they are allowing themselves to be annoyed, as opposed to just being annoyed by people or situations.
The unwritten rules of baseball serve as purely as structured to an overly structured game. “Old school” fans enjoy a straightforward game with few variations to what is expected to happen. The “American” style of game can be categorized as such. Americans, primarily the white population, love consistency and structure to their entertainment. A slow-paced, nonchalant entertainment – primarily the reason why white Americans enjoy football but not so much soccer (this paradigm is shifting).
Baseball has been slowly integrated baseball players from a Hispanic of Latin origin. The culture of the standard baseball game from these parts of the world is radically different. Not in a bad sense but more emotion, more variation in the game.
The culture of baseball is changing. For me (a non-white baseball fan), I enjoy the shift because the culture of anything changes over time. What I do not like, however, is if a non-white person said something like Harper proposed, would it be as acclaimed from the general populace?
Would you be ok with soccer becoming more white in your terms? Since cultures change in you terms.
If it changes, it changes. Do I think it will change? No. Do I even think there is a chance? No.
Fair enough.
“Americans, primarily the white population, love consistency and structure to their entertainment. A slow-paced, nonchalant entertainment”
This is the type of broad-brush statement that gets people in hot water when made about non-whites.
On a less serious note, saying that soccer is less slow-paced and nonchalant than football is an interesting perspective. Pretty sure the non-soccer fans I know don’t like watching soccer because they think it’s slower and duller than American football.
Thanks for writing this Dave.
Bryce’s only below average tool is his bat flip. Not surprising, because I’m sure when you’re 12 playing against 16 year-olds, they don’t take kindly to being informed they are your inferior. Still, he needs to work on his bat flipping.
His hair-flipping tool, though, is a SOLID 75/80/80
I’ve been saying this for a couple years. Players in the NBA, NFL, NHL and EPL, etc all celebrate after scoring or doing something good on the field. MLB says GTFO here. It is stupid and it is tired.
Time for a change. Now.
MLB’s “GTFO” isn’t uniform, though. Walk-off celebrations are pretty crazy and always tolerated. So are no-hitters. Celebrating a big double while you’re on second base isn’t frowned upon.
This is pretty much just about the home run, isn’t it?
Good points. Celebrating homers in the dugout is acceptable. It is certain celebrations in the batter’s box and certain ways of running the bases and I imagine certain players that are being policed.
Unless you’re a pitcher, and then almost any celebration is acceptable.
This is the single weirdest aspect of this topic. You NEVER hear an old-timer whining about a pitcher pumping his fist after a 4th inning K. But god forbid a hitter be happy when he hits one of his 20 HRs on the season.
The one part I don’t fully understand is the fashion part of this. When it looks like you spent over a half hour combing and gelling your hair, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll be viewed as a douchebag. That’s certainly his choice – and as long as he has thick skin, then he may as well go forward with it – but how is it helping the sport?
Maybe he does his hair without even thinking about the implications for baseball at large?
Did you click on the link? Even the title of the piece is “Bryce Harper — his play, his attitude, his hair! — is on a mission to change baseball forever.”
Ya, looking good makes you a bad person…..
Yeah this…this is not a good comment. The envious author (with his horseshoe-pattern baldness, likely) should feel bad.
“Maybe, though there were a bunch of other home runs hit in the postseason, and that’s the only one I can easily recall off the top of my head.”
Screw you!
I can only recall on regular season home run off the top of my head.
*one
I’m surprised you remember that.
As a 51 year old, I’m hardly a young punk, and I say “yay” to more fun. Seriously, this is entertainment. A lot of this country is afraid of emotion and fun, it’s kind of sad, really, imo.
As a Twins’ fan, I was sad to hear Park say he would cut down on his bat flips, very sad. Those are some epic videos.
You mean I’m not the oldest commenter on FanGraphs?? Mike, you have just made my day!
I’m 42 and when I keep how much older I am in mind, this place makes much more sense.
I’m 40. I think the unwritten rules are bullshit. Enjoy the game. Enjoy your life. Get a little crazy. Follow your passions… basically, don’t waste what little time we have here.
Also 40 and also think the unwritten rules are bullshit.
I’m 54 and I also think they’re bullshit. That’s why they’re unwritten; if you actually wrote them down, everybody would realize how stupid they are.
56 – Totally agree.
Wow, there are a lot of olds on Fangraphs.
Fangraphs got the old-appeal, huh. I never knew.
55, which is 55 in horse years. I have no problem with Cam or any of those guys who want to express themselves.
Just neighing.
I’m 61 and ok with most of it. Like many I don’t want to see celebrations on meaningless accomplishments
It figures you @#$ing nerds would be all over loving what this @#%$#@ing punk-ass pretty boy wants to do to the game. I’d drill him in his @#$%ing teeth just for saying that @#$@%!
^^^^Best comment in the whole thread^^^^
Picturing Goosage saying this has got tears coming to my eyes.
I love it; baseball needs energy and drama.
Watching Andrew McCutchen and Josh Harrison dancing in the dugout is my favorite thing. Harper and Papelbon’s moves were maybe not quite as smooth.
Maybe Bryce can lead one of these celebratory numbers
http://www.hardballtimes.com/i-dont-dance/
Yeah, why don’t we have Harper twerking the opposing catcher when he hits a tough curveball foul? Who doesn’t want “first base celebrations” on a walk? Maybe we could have Billy Butler doing the worm to first base. Maybe if the bases are loaded we could have runners doing the wave, or some other choreographed dance? /end sarcasm
I don’t mind celebrations, I don’t like watching idiots. There is a difference.
Lovely slippery slope argument……
Well, why do not difficult when the opponent tverking Curveball Harper unclean. Who does not want a “first party” for a walk? We can work with the first deep Butler. If the loading of the basics, it’s the waves, or other human dance? / End sarcasm
I do not recall memories, I like to watch these idiots. There is a difference.
I can’t stop laughing at the thought of Billy Butler doing the worm to first base.
I agree, leaving the “limits” up to a punk like Harper will ruin the sport. Don’t get me wrong, baseball could lighten up some, if you do something great you should be happy. But I also don’t want the sport to end up like football, doing TD dances in the end zone. Harper should try to duplicate his success from last season before he becomes what is “hip” in baseball.
If you would not find it endlessly entertaining to watch Billy Butler worm his way to first base, I feel sorry for you good sir. That would be appointment television. Also, it would probably help the infield drainage problems that may occur in some stadiums.
Interesting that you chose twerking – a dance form that originated in Africa – and the wave – a celebration that was popularised in Mexico – as two examples of “idiotic” behaviour. Maybe Dave has a point about the race link.
I think there is a way to do flair without disrespecting your opponent. I think soccer is a good example in that regard. You also have to do it at the right time. Flair for flair’s sake is just kinda annoying and sophomoric in a Brian Wilson kinda way.
Also, there have been baseball fashion/culture icons. Jeter and Griffey come to mind but DiMaggio before them may be the greatest example.
Disco Danny Ford.
We are family?
Fernando?
What do you have against the Beach Boys?
How did Gordon Beckham get to be a one-name icon? I forgot he was still in the majors.
Why is it that when Anerican players go to play in foreign leagues that they are required to respect the local customs but when foreign players play in American leagues they are not? Besides hypocrisy and double standards, I mean.
Your particular customs aren’t the same as many Americans’ customs. You’re a crusty old man demanding that everybody be serious… most people under 70, which you are clearly not, want to enjoy their lives and have fun doing the things they love. You are a dark cloud. A walking wet blanket. If you choose to not enjoy your life that’s fine, but don’t project your unhappiness on the rest of us.
I would buy this comment on a t-shirt, or engrave it on a brass plaque at the entry to every ballpark in America. Thank you for giving that the exact response it deserved.
Most 70-year-olds are not like this either, and I’m betting this dude was this way at 22.
At 22, I was playing third base. And when I hit a home run, or when we won the conference, I acted like I’d been there before.
But then I was taught to play baseball like a professional and not like a punk.
So, in other words, it’s more “BACK IN MY DAY WE DIDN’T DO IT LIKE THAT OR WE GOT PUNCHED IN THE FACE! GOOSE GOSSAGE, HE KNOWS WHAT’S UP! Derp”
I’m a man who was sent overseas several times and the instructions always were “Respect the local culture.” American baseball players who play in Japanese leagues are told the same thing. Which means that foreigners playing in American leagues need to be told to respect our culture.
Anything else is racist, hypocritical, and a double standard
Ohhh you’re one of those guys who think there is actual racism against white people. Now your comments all make sense. And by making sense I mean it makes sense that they are completely wrong.
look we understand how you feel on the issue you dont need to leave 50 comments saying the same thing nobody cares that youre a bitter old man wrapped up in your 50’s mode of thinking. the answer to this issue is very simple, if celebrating and having fun isn’t ideal to you then just dont do it. sit on the couch for the entirety of the party if that’s your idea of fun. nobody is trying to make anyone do anything they don’t want to do. they are just trying to live life the way they see fit. but trying to force your views on how people should behave onto other people who don’t see life the way you do is pretty fucking fascist. if someone wants to dance at a party that’s their right to decide to do with themselves what they’d like. not yours. not anyone else’s. and if violence is your idea of shutting that down, well that’s a personal emotional issue that you really need to have addressed.
Your views are the racist ones: foreigners must be excused from professional behavior, because they can’t handle it. That’s nonsense.
Do you even understand what professionalism means? I
Nobody says they have to pimp home runs or carry their wallet with $5000 in their uniform back pocket or keep their gun in their locker. I’ve never heard an American player say that.
While I hold true to the thought that there is a right and wrong way to play the game, even golfers get excited when they make a big putt. Isn’t it just a little sad that baseball is expected to have less emotion than a game where they literally hold up a sign for people to be quiet while the game is being played? Think about the Payne Stewart celebration at the US Open. That’s an iconic moment in golf history. If he tried that on the baseball field, he would’ve been tackled and shamed for having the nerve to enjoy the moment.
If you bat flip after hitting a single, you’re a jerk. If you bat flip after smashing one 450 feet, I’ve got no issue with you. If you want to fist pump after fanning a guy in a crucial situation to preserve a lead, that’s fine too. If you fist pump after striking out Jon Lester, well congrats on your first strikeout.
The whole argument is pretty stupid because baseball is made up of 750-ish different players with 750-ish different personalities. There is no one single right answer.
Bryce Harper says he is cool with pitchers fist pumping and staring him down after a strikeout. Thats great for Bryce Harper. It doesnt mean every player shares that same view nor does it mean they have too. If some other player gets pissed off by a pitcher staring him down and wants to say something to him then thats cool too. His view is just as valid as Harpers. Jose Bautista wants to throw the bat after his ALDS HR? Good on him. If Sam Dyson wants to yell at him for it, good on him too.
The idea that everyone should react the same way to certain situations is just dumb. Regardless of what the actual reaction may be.
This is probably the most logical comment I’ve seen on the subject. I fall on the “have fun” side of things… but this is a totally fair position to take. Too bad it’s stuck way at the bottom.
That only goes so far. We do have expectations as to what is an acceptable way to behave.
Right now, in baseball, flipping your bat and admiring a home run is not considered acceptable, even if it is a big moment in a game.
Likewise, we can decide that, if a pitcher pumps his fist after getting a guy out, that it is not acceptable for the batter to start yelling at the pitcher and instigating a fight, even if that is what his personality makes him inclined to do.
For me, there are lot of things that are currently interpreted as showing up the opponent that do not need to be. We could allow a lot more celebration both at the plate and on the mound than we currently do, if players were to understand that they don’t have to take that personally.
I just think its weird that whenever we have this discussion about displaying emotion/personality it always seems to be a one sided thing. Everyone advocates for more “fun” while every other emotion is deemed wrong or bad.
I think its perfectly fine for a guy/team to celebrate (within reason obviously) but its also perfectly fine for the other guy/team to be pissed off about it (within reason obviously).
I like seeing emotion, period. From all over the spectrum.
I think not everyone (maybe including you) is doing a great job distinguishing between fan “fun” and on-field player emotion. It’s “fun” for me, in the sense where “fun” is shorthand for “it provides the entertaining fan experience that I like,” to see players have the range of emotions you’re talking about — getting angry, heated, fired up, playful, goofy, serious, and all kinds of other things. That I want the game to be “fun” — for me — doesn’t mean I want the players on the field to be only having/feeling “fun.”
I completely agree with you. All I want to see is emotion, but it is kind of a natural reaction to take things to the extreme. When one side has Goose F#@$%@# Gossage and all the unwritten rule supporters who are anti-fun, it is easy to go to the other extreme and say having fun is the only proper emotion.
“Anti-fun”? Baseball is fun. Watching some immature punk preen, strut, posture or throw a tantrum is the opposite of fun. A 5-4-3 DP is a thing of joy; watching Manny Machado act like he’s twelve years old and needs a timeout is excruciating.
To see the stereotypical “Whites are Stiff, Boring People” angle mixed into the pot is particularly disappointing…”certain kinds of people are more fun while others are more boring”…have we really bought into that stereotype-driven mentality this completely?
Carlton Fisk waving his HR fair in the 1975 World Series, was FUN…ditto Bernie Carbo practically flying into home plate – and they were great moments for them, their team and their fans – and no one would see those as showing up their opponents. Eck pumping his fist after otherwise-routine strikeouts, was more self-preening and showing up their opponents. Kirk Gibson’s celebration of his HR of Eck didn’t involve staring Eck down as he ran the bases and mockingly pumping his fist back, blowing him a kiss Bryce-style – it was a spontaneous “WOW” emotion.
In a game where the best still fail 2/3 of the time, a certain level of humility seems to fit the territory better..and I can’t help but feel a connection between the “Wow, see how great *I* am” preening-players, and the “Kim Kardashian / Reality TV / Look at MEEEEE!” mentality of these years.
Maybe the players on the bad side of good play should see a celebration as a compliment. If I were a batter I’d feel a lot more elated hitting one off of Kershaw or Wade Davis than I would off of some replacement player, because of level of accomplishment.
And there should be no apologizing for showing emotion at something cathartic, like a go-ahead homerun when your team hasn’t been in the playoffs for two decades.
Yes baseball is fun. So is seeing emotion. Throwing a ball at someone like a toddler who just had a toy taken away isn’t fun. It’s idiotic. Regardless of what the other person may or may not have done to “earn” a fastball at the head or back. That is what unwritten rule supporters are in favor of. You may think Machado is acting like he is 12 but at least he isn’t actively trying to hurt someone because his poor little feelings got hurt.
The difference is that Bryce Harper wants everyone to be able act like themselves but Sam Dyson wants everyone to act the way he wants them to.
stealing home after being plunked by Hamels – priceless. more of this please. thank you.
Still my favorite Bryce Harper moment.
My two cents: Bring on the celebrations, with one major exception: throwing a baseball bat into the air (IMO) is dangerous and irresponsible and it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt. Was the Bautista bat flip a great moment? Undoubtedly, but he’s lucky the bat didn’t go into the stands and injure a fan.
I prefer the “act like you’ve been there before” ethos, but I’ve also found the backlash against athlete celebrations to be much worse than the celebrations themselves.
This is a football example, but a Seahawks’ fan, I found the letter protesting Cam Newton’s tossing of the 12th Man flag embarrassng.
80-grade comment section, gj everybody
First of all, as mentioned above, 3 of the first 4 players Bryce mentioned as being fun loving were white.
Second, the white American players aren’t any more obligated to allow foreigners to bat flip than foreigners (thinking Japanese of Korean) are obligated to stop bat flipping to accommodate white players in their leagues. This is a doo doo view to have.
white american players shouldn’t have the option of ‘allowing’ foreigner players with different customs to behave a certain way. they don’t own the game and they don’t own the other players. and the fact that their method of controlling the behavior of people from different backgrounds is through violence is a pretty accurate reflection of what white history is.
This *is* a really interesting thread. It’s fascinating to see the virtually perfect correlation between usernames I’ve associated with very poor understanding of advanced baseball stats in other threads and advocacy of traditionalist American “right way to play the game” Stoic cultural codes in this one. I’m guessing there’s a whole cluster of cultural-political factors behind the scenes here, from just level of education to anti-intellectualism, statistical illiteracy/innumeracy, and cultural traditionalism all the way to nativism and racial prejudice. It’s a really suggestive and interesting discovery how closely just understanding WAR seems to proxy all of that!
So in other words, the stat truthers are Trump supporters.
So I guess it’s ironic to watch baseball as entertainment and to try (at least briefly) put aside all the world’s political and cultural tensions?
To whatever extent you can do that, more power to you, I guess. I too do that when I can, not trying to harsh anyone’s mellow here — just sometimes really can’t help noticing how the game is still played and watched by real political people in the real political world.
Agreed. Political views are not disconnected from other beliefs, even for games that involve a lot of money.
Not disconnected, but not necessarily correlated.
I’m probably not as progressively forward-thinking as you guys politically, but I’m all for keeping entertainment fresh and not stodgy. It’s not as though there’s a one-to-one correspondence between being conservative/libertarian and being as sabermetric Luddite (like that TWTF troll so poorly tries to spoof in his blog).
But I appreciate you caring about not harshing anyone’s mellow (not being sarcastic either). I just get so disenamored with everything political that I use my time here (and watching baseball) to decompress from that world.
Thank you Bryce Harper!
Pretty tired to see the Brian McCanns policing all the fun that could be had.
I really hope the Yankees are going to lose out on the Bryce Harper sweepstakes strictly due to their whole tired “no facial hair” policy.
The funny thing is about “disrespect”. To me, acting all blasé about hitting a home run is disrespect to the pitcher, like aw, it’s nothing to hit one off this guy. Being jazzed about your accomplishment is respect for your opponent.
Sure, pointed “you suck” gestures are something else again, but most celebration really doesn’t read like that to me.
So, Harper is even douchier than I thought. Interesting.
it’s mind boggling how much these ‘old timers’ want to control the behavior of other people. it’s ridiculous how they’ve appointed themselves the guardians of the status quo and the irony of it all is that it such an immature point of view to try to control the behavior of other people just because it is something that you personally don’t want to do. if you don’t like a certain pattern of behavior you have every right to not partake. but your rights only pertain to your personal decisions and they end the moment they intend to interfere with someone else’s rights to behave the way they choose.
This is obviously not true. So do people also have the right to talk during the movie at a theater, and we just have to tolerate it because they have the right to behave however they want? Do coworkers have the right to insult us to our faces and we have to tolerate it because they have the right to behave however they want? Do athletes have the right to tweet homophobic stuff and we have to tolerate it because they have the right to behave however they want?
If a player tries to embarrass his opponents in front of who-knows-how-many people, they have every right to confront them on it. These guys know what they are doing, and they know the consequences.
that’s a terrible response because 1) talking during a movie interferes with other’s people right to enjoy a movie at a place where it us understood that is what you are there for. that’s not hard to understand and is universally accepted so don’t try to twist that. 2) co-workers insulting you and creating a hostile environment interferes with your right to work in a hostile free environment and an overall feeling of safety in a place where you are supposed to be there to work and that is also easy to understand. and that third one… i mean i don’t understand how you are even trying to use that as an argument. homophobia is an attempt to control the right of other people to live the lifestyle they want. how are you missing the point so much?
You can’t possibly be so immature as to believe that.
papelbon is the type of person that attends trump rallies
And not ironically or to protest.
“Random number generators should have more flair!”
“Are you kidding me? Random number generators should act like the white random number generators of yore!”
“No way. Random number generators should show more passion.”
“No way. Random number generators should have more tradition.”
You people are weird.
That being said, if someone like Bautista wants to show his passion by flipping his bat … cool. I’m all for it. But why would we stop a pitcher from showing his anger by playing some chin music?
Because one might make the pitcher feel bad and purposefully plunking a player with a 90-MPH projectile is assault?
That was easy! Anything else?
I think Harper made a good point but I’m going to take it in a different direction. I would say baseball is based on more “unwritten rules” than other sports, or as much as I know it is. For several years we’ve been moving away from a lot of those “rules” because they are seen as somewhat dangerous, immature and often asking to injure another player. Think of hitting an opposing batter in retaliation, railroading a catcher, (and now) taking out a 2nd baseman/SS on a double play. After we take these plays out there’s not much more a player can do to “get back” at the other team except perform and brag when doing it. Let me make myself clear though, I’m not saying I’m in favor of beanballs or ending a players career because a runner wanted to avoid an out, but I could see the pattern the game is following and people considering the sport boring. I think of football and basketball (and hockey to a lesser extent) and think of high contact, fast paced plays and often celebrating some minuscule lay-up or tackle. These things, if not necessary or advantageous to the game add action and I genuinely believe that people will grow attracted to the flashier thing.
Bye bye deep Canadian fly
Let the haters and beraters curse the color of sky
Them good ole boys will foul the air with their cry
Sayin’ this won’t be the day that I die
This won’t be the day that I die
So bye bye – don’t be askin’ Goose why
You can scuttle your rebuttal – there’s no need to reply
So flip your bat and raise your fist to the sky
Sayin’ we’re all gonna live ’til we die
We’re all gonna live ’til we die
That’s really good lol!
I cheer for teams and uniforms. The only players I cheer for (with rare exceptions) are those playing on my teams and wearing those uniforms. What Harper is really promoting is that MLB transcend this to become a league of individuals, not of teams. He wants us to cheer for Bryce Harper as much as the Nationals. He wants the players to become the face of the sport instead of the clubs. I think the clubs will push back against this idea.
Are you serious? Baseball has always been about the stars. Ty Cobb Babe Ruth Rogers Hornsby Walter Johnson Lou Gehrig Jimmy Foxx Joe Dimaggio Ted Williams Stan Musial Jackie Robinson Mickey Mantle and so many others.
Before television these players were such big stars that the media actively cooperated with teams and baseball to suppress any sniff of scandal that came out of their behavior. I think that’s why people have this reverence for the old days and ways. They’ve been deluded by the fact that nothing these great stars ever did wrong ever saw print.
Well said Rich. People fondly remember “how things used to be” and view the past through rose-colored glasses. It’s often not based in reality in the least (or, we pick and choose the parts of the past we want to remember and conveniently leave out the rest that doesn’t square with our worldview)
I’m all for unbridled enthusiasm about game-turning plays. Showing off for purely individual feats, though, I can do without.
While it’s true that other sports mark explosive moments of athleticism with explosive celebrations, fans who are looking for explosions in baseball are going to be bored by the wait. Baseball doesn’t give us a teeth-rattling tackle or backboard-shaking dunk every minute. To enjoy baseball, you have to appreciate the subtler things. And if you appreciate the subtler things, a chest-thumping victory lap for a third-inning homer doesn’t add much to the experience.
More celebration in baseball is really good only for the highlight reels and Sportscenter. For any fan who’d actually watch an entire game, it’s a mild bonus at best. I don’t see any way there’s enough value there to override the sentiment of historian-type fans who value baseball’s sense of continuity over its ability to follow fads.
Regarding Bautista’s bat flip:
I am all for celebrating when a guy gets a lead-changing hit late in a playoff game!
But that was not just enthusiastic celebration. The posture, expression, and cross-body, no-look bat-heave all communicated one thing: contempt. It was a giant, obvious “F You!”, and that is COMPLETELY different from “Yay! I gave us the lead!” exuberance.
I wouldn’t assume that Bautista was aiming his disdain at Dyson personally — it was probably more directed at the baseball itself, or at the concept of any pitcher thinking he could beat Jose in that spot — but still, it added an angry edge to the moment, and when you do that during intense competition, you should expect push-back.
Greeting taunts with violence is stupid, so I’m not saying anyone should throw at Bautista’s head. But if he’s such a tough guy up there, he should be happy to take a base in exchange for a fastball to the hip. And if the Rangers want to test him on that, I wouldn’t blame them.
Cole Hamels drilling a rookie Bryce Harper in the back just to say, “I’m a veteran and you’re over-hyped!” on the other hand, is disgusting. It’s all about context. Just because some policing is stupid doesn’t mean all of it is, and vice versa.
You are seeing his actions through a white, US-centric lens, though. I’m not seeing a “f@ck you” here, or a tough guy. I’m seeing a supreme athlete coming up with the goods under the most intense pressure, and the flip was more one of relief and exultation.
Further Harper comments:
“I saw [what Sergio Romo said],” Harper said. “But he has to understand: I’m standing up for him.”
Romo, for years, has celebrated significant outs with all manner of gestures.
“It’s personal expression,” Harper said. “I love that. But if a closer strikes you out, and you complain about it, and you’re like, ‘Oh, he can’t do this celebration’ or whatever, you can’t do that. You walk away and say, ‘I hope I get you tomorrow night, because if I do, you’ll know.’
“I always try to respect the game, because I admire so many people from ages before me. And I know the history of the game, and I understand it completely. But, it’s a new generation of the game. You have to adapt to those circumstances. You have to adapt to that part of life. … You have to live in the times that you’re in. I think everybody’s adapting to that, slowly but surely.
“On the flip side of that, I’m going to respect everybody I play against. If you’re down 10-1, and you showboat a homer, and you jog around the bases, then you deserve to get hit. If you’re in spring training, and you hit a homer and pimp it, what are you doing? But if it’s Game 5 of a playoff series? Hello? Absolutely.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2016/03/11/why-bryce-harper-wont-back-down-from-his-own-words/
No way for him to change to game. I’m the guy holding the remote.
If Harper wasn’t white, would this get even half the attention/agreement it is now? Genuinely curious, because every time this argument gets made from a minority player it gets almost completely ignored in the media.
suggest you look into Reggie Jackson, George Foster, Rickie Henderson to name just a few. They didn’t have to talk so much… until later in their careers when they earned the respect of others in the game. Harper should just zip it and put together a few more MVP seasons.
By all means let’s make this about race because everyone knows that Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal and Pedro Martinez were not fans of the unwritten rules and never threw at anyone for any reason. Roberto Clemente and Frank Robinson and Hank Aaron were always making sure everyone knew when they made a great play. Oh, and Ernie Banks. The guy must have hated playing because he never let himself indulge in gratuitous celebrations. You could tell how much playing the game ‘the right way’ wore on him. The man never smiled on the field.
The real issue here is that, as with many political issues, one side intolerantly tells the other that they need to be more tolerant. The problem isn’t so much with the guy who complains about the kids on his lawn. What is really being asked is for that guy to be outside begging the kids to be on his lawn.
This is much ado about nothing in the long run. No one is telling Harper or Bautista or Romo or whomever that they can’t have fun or celebrate or do whatever they want to draw attention to their accomplishments. Have at it boys. Please don’t begrudge those on the other side, though, when you get thrown at or whatever.
It is true that there are a wealth of cultures in Major League Baseball. No one gets to say that one culture should be allowed to do whatever it wants and the others can’t. The cultures have to coexist and each has to find its comfort zone. So if Joey Bats wants to flip his bat and admire his handiwork and stare down the pitcher or whatever, he simply needs to understand that his actions that reflect his culture are possibly going to conflict with some other cultures in the MLB melting pot and he needs to accept the consequences. That seems pretty simple and easy to live with for everyone.
The point is that beaning someone is an immature (and potentially dangerous) way to react to their display of emotion. There’s no reason to simply “accept the consequences.” A pitcher who tries to hit someone because they’re mad about giving up a home run is just wrong.
Funny thing is, you’re BOTH right.
If a guy “shows up” the pitcher he just homered off, as defined by the well-known unwritten rules of baseball, then by those same rules he should expect some kind of payback. Just like a teenage girl who’s been warned about a dangerous part of town shouldn’t be surprised if she gets attacked while walking through it.
BUT, the attack is just plain wrong, and we as a society have correctly decided that such an attack is illegal and could lead to a 5-to-15-year date with Bubba. Retaliatory beanballs should likewise be viewed as not tolerable.
What is entertainment? There is probably not a large overlap between the fan demographic for polo and NASCAR. One person’s entertainment is another person’s vulgarity; one person’s entertainment is another person’s boredom.
Now you got me hoping someone invents racecar polo.
We can call it rolo. It’ll be awesome.
Harper clearly does not know his baseball history. And that is fine I suppose as long as he continues to shine on the field. I wonder how he would have spoken some few years back while he was struggling to get to firstbase on a grounder… or some years in the future when he no longer can “get around on a 96mph heater”.
The world is his oyster now.
Perhaps in the future he will be eating those words. I certainly have no desire to see baseball as played in MLB develop along the lines of the NFL model…you will never see a pitcher celebrate beaning a batter while it’s a given that a defender in football prances around after ringing someones bell. Or, Cam carrying on after making a first-down… give it a rest man!
Baseball has over the generations had many great characters. Right now the torch is being passed to a new generation, and Bryce is making his case to be the face of it. His comments concerning “fashion” are good for a laugh and tell me of his shallow idea of bringing personality to the game.
The beauty of baseball, and the thing everybody loves about it, is it hasn’t had much change in the some 150 years it has been played professionally. It is the same game as played back then. It is loved because it hasn’t changed. Look what NASCAR did in “fooling” with the traditions of The Southern 500 on Labor Day, Racing on July 4th no matter the day of the week, etc. They drove their core fans away in droves, and since the fair weather fans only jump on the bandwagon, they don’t support thru thick and thin. Basketball did the same thing and haven’t recovered. This is the game. If you don’t like it, go to some other sport to play. As far as the “unwritten rules”. At what level of maturity does one need to realize proper behavior, no matter what arena? The unprofessional displays of behavior aren’t acceptable in any setting. Would one care to see Little League kids act like “in your face” brats? No, we show our children the correct manner of sportsmanship in respecting ones opponent on the field. Is the court system “tired”? Should we suffer the behavior of lawyers trying their case with clipboard flips and fist pumps? At shareholder meetings or financial deals, do the professional executives slam their notepads on the floor or flip their pens in the air and yell “booyaa”? We know the answer to this, and it is not to act like a 3 year old. Act like you’ve been there. That you have respect for the player across the field, desk, bench, etc. Be professional, respectful, dignified. That behavior is timeless and not “tired”. Time to pull up your “Big Boy” pants and act like an adult.