You can now count the Commissioner of Major League Baseball among those who think that the game could use a little more Bryce Harper. Rob Manfred, in a meeting on Thursday with the Associated Press Sports Editors, said, “I think to the extent that you believe, and I actually do, that Bryce Harper is a spokesman for this generation, I suspect that you will see more exuberance from our players on the field,”
Harper, who came under fire in March for his comments in an interview with ESPN The Magazine, has called baseball a “tired sport” and wore a cap that said “Make Baseball Fun Again” while speaking with the media after the Washington Nationals season-opening win on April 4th.
Former players, including Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Goose Gossage don’t take kindly to Harper’s view of the game. Gossage, who also found himself in the news last month after his less than kind words in regards to Jose Bautista’s bat flip in last season’s playoffs, said of Harper, “This kid doesn’t know squat about the game, and [has] no respect for it.”
That Manfred seemed to side with the reigning National League MVP speaks to the momentum that is building within baseball to loosen the “unwritten rules” that have presided over the game for years.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Manfred said. “I think that to the extent that you’re trying to market to a younger audience, our younger players taking control of the definition of those unwritten rules is a lot better than some guy who’s 67 years old saying, ‘I did it that way and you ought do it the same way.’”
The Major League Baseball Players Union seems to be inching in the same direction as well. According to a report from Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, the union is giving increased attention to the marketing and promotion of players in its current talks with the league office about the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
That stars in the big leagues are not nearly as identifiable as their counterparts in the NFL and NBA is a problem not just for those players, but for MLB itself in growing its reach culturally.
Which brings us back to Harper, who is basically the unofficial spokesman of the generational shift taking place in baseball. That he is brash, outspoken, and supremely confident makes him an easy target, but he is backing it up on the field.
Harper is hitting .327 with seven home runs and 21 runs batted in through the first two weeks of the season. He also became the eighth-youngest player in history to hit 100 career homers.
Manfred’s supportive comments are a refreshing departure for a game that in the past has too often evolved at a glacial pace.
“I actually believe that a player of his stature starting a dialogue about what the sport’s going to look like – and I think that dialogue involves mostly his peers, the players on the field – will produce a positive result for the game,” Manfred said. “They’re young. They see the world different. My kids see the world different than I do, and I think if we want young people to take the game forward, we have to be tolerant of that dialogue while things change.”
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