Bryce Harper Has a Point

As much as I love the game of baseball, there has always seemed to be an aspect of the game that has been missing: flash.

Baseball is all about tradition, and I’m no opponent of that, but the unwritten rule of baseball that has a rule against celebrating needs to be thrown out to pasture. Don’t get me wrong; I love baseball with a burning passion, but the concept of being unable to celebrate with any creativity or flair has always rubbed me the wrong way.

What makes this concept so strange is that baseball is the only sport that has a taboo on celebrations. In basketball, just on the Golden State Warriors, Stephen Curry will pound his chest and point towards the sky after a three, Andre Iguodala will shrug whenever he does something big, and Draymond Green will flex after draining a shot plus the foul. In football there’s, of course, Cam Newton made the Carolina Panthers the team to watch in the NFL. Both these teams are talented beyond measure, but it’s not just their skill that makes them fun to watch. It’s the excitement they bring to the table, night in and night out.

In baseball, however, there aren’t too many memorable celebrations. Sure, there are a couple, such as Angel Pagan’s salute or Sergio Romo throwing an “L” to the sky, a la Curry, just to name some examples on the Giants, but they are few and far between.

Why is it like this? Well, baseball is old-school. This sport has a low tolerance level for celebrations, so most players refuse to participate to remain from being chastised by their opponents, nonetheless thrown at by them.

So, when Bryce Harper, a player who plays with flash and fire, says that baseball is a “tired game,” he has a point.

Earlier today, Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine released an article on Harper, and Harper had some interesting comments in regards to the lack of ability to celebrate:

“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 the 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.

[...]

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.”

The celebrations that are well-known in baseball are so minuscule that no one bats an eye about it. When someone boasts, bad things happen.

Remember former San Diego Padre Jesus Guzman? On June 18th, 2013, Guzman hit a pinch-hit homer off of own Jeremy Affeldt to give the Padres the lead late in the game. For the Giants, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Guzman stood in the batter’s box for quite a while, admiring the ball as it sailed into the left-center field stands. Then, on his way to first base, he threw his bat, turned towards the San Diego dugout, and screamed in a moment of pure excitement. What happened the next day? Madison Bumgarner threw behind him and the benches cleared.

Such incidents have made celebrations so much of an outcast that no one will try even the most basic of moves. Those that do just enough to tick off his opponent are thrown at, creating a vicious cycle.

There’s a reason that Major League Baseball is starting to the youth population, especially the interest of African-American children. The game simply isn’t exciting. While the game of baseball is passing them by, these children are watching basketball and football, seeing Curry and Newton dominate and have fun while they’re doing it. They’re watching because these sports are exciting. Baseball's pace is slow enough that the average child’s attention span will not be able to cling on for more than an inning, and the fact that celebrating is nearly nonexistent is not the greatest marketing pitch for the sport.

Think that baseball couldn’t use a little bit of flair? Let’s go back to the 2015 Postseason. Scratch that. Let’s go back to the entire season. What was the most exciting moment? Oh, only this guy named Jose Bautista, who hit a moonshot, then, in a moment that will forever live down in Toronto baseball lore, screamed and chucked his bat. Toronto went wild. The collective internet went insane. Athletes, celebrities, and even politicians were tweeting about that home run. There was an energy that felt foreign, but everyone loved it. The excitement that baseball was so desperately missing arose from the dead in one swing. Baseball was back.

The sad thing about that celebration is that it should happen all the time, not just on a particular occasion. Baseball is a game, and games are meant to be fun. Hit a homerun? Throw up some Hanley Ramirez goggles! Strike someone out? Pump your fist and stomp your feet! Do literally anything good? Celebrate! No one in basketball holds a straight face after draining a three or slamming home a thunderous dunk, and no one in football acts as if a touchdown is just taking care of business. The athletes in those sports take every opportunity they can to celebrate because they play a game for a living. It doesn’t matter if you’re Guzman or Posey if you want to celebrate, just do it. We don’t need to restrict it to celebrations either! Just for one, bring back the Crazy Crab and the San Diego Chicken and let them annoy opposing players like Orbit. Better yet, have the umpires dress up in the mascot uniforms? Bullpen cars too, because why not?

At the end of the day, baseball is a game. Let’s break down this barrier put on the fun. If the Jose Bautista home run has taught us anything, it’s that, as an audience, we love players who are not only highly skilled, but those who have fire and passion. We, as well as players, should embrace those who play with those characteristics. Denying players the ability to celebrate because it’s an unwritten rule is blasphemy, and it’s driving away the game’s future. It's going to take a lot and then some for baseball to embrace a complete culture change. But killing the taboo placed on celebrations may just be the igniter that puts baseball back on top of the sporting totem pole.

#opinion