Day 281

Fresh Start_281: PC Community outrage
A good old-fashioned brawl in San Francisco. There will be stories all over the country today about how terrible this brawl is for baseball, and Bryce Harper will face a 5-10 suspension for “going out and getting him” in the words for Harper.

Given where Harper was hit (right on the right cheek of his rear end), the 98 MPH fastball could’ve hurt more. This entire story would have been different if Hunter Strickland threw a 98 MPH fastball at Harper’s head.

I know I am an old-school thinker here, but I do not have a problem with this whole situation. Harper is the headliner of the “be personal in a game that doesn’t ‘allow’ you to be personal” movement; my thoughts on that movement is there are times for that to happen. The Jose Bautista bat flip situation, why shouldn’t he be allowed to throw his bat in the air after hitting arguably the second biggest homerun in the franchise’s history?

 Let the men who are playing the children’s act like children just for a minute. Why is that expectable, I’m having trouble understanding that. Harper is one of the faces of the game—so Major League Baseball let a marketable face be himself.

With that, this brawl proves that baseball still has some personality left in it. The “white man’s sport” still has the poster dunk moment, or high speed crash moment left in it. An old-fashioned brawl, where a player charges the mound, and there is a “HERE WE GO!” moment right before the first punch is thrown. Nobody got hurt during this brawl, just some bad blood fueling a brawl that I would have expected from the Red Sox and Orioles.

If this brawl has between a no-name bench player from the Nationals against Hunter Strickland, would this story be as big? Is Bryce Harper making this story bigger than it is? Nobody but the Giants and Nationals will remember this brawl a month from now, so why is this brawl that big.

When these brawls used to happen before anyone cared about the brawls and how they affect the players or “the integrity of the game.” Nobody cared about the brawl, everyone just enjoyed the brawl for what it was and it added to the rivalry or created one.

If the Red Sox-Yankee brawl that begun with A-Rod soft punching Jason Varitek, you know the brawl where Pedro Martinez pushes over Don Zimmer. If that happened today, the sports media market would have exploded in a ball of ultimate triggered-ness. This Harper-Strickland beef is refreshing to see from a baseball than expected it when a pitcher threw at a guy between the numbers or the rear end.

I am so the same guy that doesn’t have a problem with a guy getting hit, then the opposing team hits a guy for retaliation is something that is just baseball. Again, throwing a fastball at a guys head is not acceptable, but what’s the problem with hitting a guy to show the guys on your team that you have your back. There is a moment when you are watching sports that you just have to let sports be what they are. Hockey will never have fights like they had in the 90’s into the early 2000’s, basketball will fine you half your contract for anything that hints at a fight, and even the NFL is turning into flag football (a whole different conversation), but just let sports be sports. At the end of the day, sports are made for children; and these guys are getting paid millions to play the child’s game.
Sources:(bleacherreport.com)

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