Bryce Harper, one of baseball’s great young stars, recently wore a hat that said "Make Baseball Fun Again," playing off Donald Trump’s campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again."
Harper wore the hat when he spoke to the media following the Washington Nationals’ 4-3 win over the Atlanta Braves on April 4. This came off the heels of an ESPN feature on Harper, which quotes him as saying that baseball is a "tired sport" because "you can’t express yourself."
Let’s face the reality that he brought up.
Baseball, America’s Pastime, is falling behind the other major sports in the world because you can’t express yourself. The so-called "unwritten rules of baseball" don’t allow you to do so.
In the ESPN story, Harper says that baseball needs more Cam Newton types because they express themselves on the field, whether people like it or not.
Switch over to basketball, and take a look at the way Golden State guard Stephen Curry expresses himself on the court, often high-fiving teammates and yelling at the crowd before his three-pointers hit the bottom of the net. It’s unique, and it’s fun.
But when the Toronto Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista flipped his bat after hitting a go-ahead three run home run in Game 5 of the American League Division Series last season, the old guards of baseball lost their minds.
Guys like Hall of Fame pitcher Goose Gossage went on a tirade to the media and called Bautista "a disgrace to the game. … Throwing his bat and acting like a fool, like all those guys in Toronto."
Get real, Goose. It’s your ridiculous thought process that feeds into Harper’s point: Baseball is tired and boring.
Harper is a part of the new culture that’s coming up in baseball. He’s 23 years old, and he was brought up in the same culture as Curry and Newton.
Is it really all that different just because Harper plays baseball, a sport that has been around since the 1800s? It boggles my mind, and I’m not the only one.
"I think it’s cool to have a guy like (Harper), the face of baseball, present these things to media and outlets and other young baseball players because we want the game to be fun," UF outfielder Buddy Reed said. "We can’t do as many things as other sports can like basketball."
I would like to see Goose come to one of Florida’s baseball games and listen to all the walk-up songs that the Gators have. I’d be willing to bet he’d go on a tirade yet again. And like his tirade against Batista, it would be totally unjustified.
Harper, on the other hand, would enjoy seeing that members of his own generation are having fun while expressing themselves in their own way.
"We don’t get that media coverage around the world like basketball, football and soccer," Reed said. "So definitely we should start doing things that make people wanna watch baseball and come to the baseball field."
So give me more bat flips, more walk-up songs and more emotion from the game of baseball. Then, maybe it won’t be so tired and boring anymore.
Luis Torres is the alligatorSports.org editor. You can contact him at ltorres@alligator.org and you can follow him on Twitter @LFTorresIII.
Washington Nationals' Bryce Harper (34) celebrates with teammates after a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves at Nationals Park, Tuesday, April 12, 2016, in Washington. Harper hit a two-run double in the eighth innings. The Nationals won 2-1. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
