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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