April 27, 2016

  • Jayson StarkESPN Senior Author

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    • Senior writer for ESPN.com
    • 21 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer
    • Writer of iii baseball books

He leads the league in homers. He leads the league in stop-what-y'all're-doing-and-turn-on-SportsCenter moments. And, of form, he leads the league in hair. But in other news, Bryce Harper has a war to fight.

The civilization war.

He might non look the part. But baseball game's most magnetic actor is the Gen. George S. Patton of the baseball culture war. He sees what the men around him don't. He says what the men effectually him won't. So he is willing to fight to save the earth. His world. The beautiful world of baseball game. And amazingly, the fight started with a cap.

"MAKE Baseball FUN AGAIN." Four words, stitched in carmine onto a white trucker's cap, sitting atop Harper's head equally he addressed the media later homering on Opening Solar day. Permit the fun begin. Let the civilization war begin.

He was "only messing around," he says at present. Just messing with the media. And you'll be shocked to acquire that three weeks after, Make Baseball FUN Over again caps and T-shirts are eminently available for purchase all over the internet, not to mention at the Washington Nationals' team store.

But here'southward the important office: When Harper wriggled that cap onto his caput that 24-hour interval, information technology had nothing to practise with marketing. He was a human with a message. And he'southward going to make sure we all hear that message for, like, the next two decades.

"I love this game more than than annihilation in the entire world," he says. "Simply ..."

But? Was that a "but?" It sure was. But ... the game has to change. And -- you need to know this, you need to exist gear up for this -- Bryce Harper is volunteering to drive that change.

When he told ESPN The Magazine this winter that "baseball game is tired ... because you tin can't express yourself," he knew exactly what he was doing. Knew exactly what he was saying. Knew exactly why he was proverb it.

"When I was doing the article, I knew it was going to exist a adept read," he says. "I knew it was going to show the amount of enthusiasm that I had toward the game and how much I love this game. Only times are changing."

And who is more uniquely positioned to exist the agent for change than the well-nigh dynamic 23-year-old game-changer in this sport? When Harper arrived in the large leagues, he was nineteen. He was already a light-up-the-heaven fireball, blazing with eye blackness, energy and bravado. And what was the reaction of the quondam-schoolhouse world around him? Suspicion. What else?

Asked if there were times back and so when he felt pressure not to express his personality, Harper thinks carefully about how to answer.

"Seriously, at a young age, it's kind of scary to do it," he says, "considering you never know what's going to happen. You know, sometimes you lot do it, and it'southward like, 'Maybe I shouldn't take washed that,' because you lot're 19, twenty years old and facing a guy who's 35, 36, and he probably isn't going to similar what I just did to him."

But now information technology's non so scary anymore. Not for him at least. And Harper is actively working to promote the idea that information technology shouldn't ever be scary. The civilization he is waging this state of war against might never see it that way. But Gen. Patton merely doesn't get that.

He'southward totally absurd with some unwritten rules. But most of them? They would make more sense to him if they would just factor in the pregnant of the moment.

"If you're up, viii-i or nine-1," Harper says, "you're not going to steal second base of operations. And you're not going to gloat a homer, up 8-1 or 9-1. But game on the line, huge moment, you never know what you're going to do. It'south something that just happens. And that'due south what makes the game fun. Information technology's that emotion. It'south that fire. It'south that competitiveness."

And so the Jose Bautista bat flip? Y'all'll notice no bigger fan of that flip, outside of the Bautista family maybe, than Bryce Harper.

"That was just a huge situation," Harper says. "And it's similar I was maxim. You lot never know what you lot're going to do. You have a whole country behind you. And being able to bear witness an emotion in the playoffs ... I mean, I have no idea what I would have done if I had hit that homer. I have no clue. And so I enjoyed seeing it. And I think Major League Baseball enjoyed seeing it. They put it everywhere, so they must take.

"What an incredible moment for baseball, just as a fan of the sport," Harper adds. "I hateful, how many NFL or NBA or Olympian or any athletes -- they all know about the Bautista bat flip, considering it'due south incredible, considering information technology's out there. He put it out in that location. Information technology's fun. The emotion was amazing."

So on the Culture War mission argument, what'south the full general'due south definition of "fun?" Y'all just got information technology hand-delivered. "Fun" means never having to apologize for expressing 18-carat joy, every bit long every bit it's existent. And justified. And not mean-spirited.

If baseball game is always going to connect with its lost generation, Harper's generation, information technology has to cantankerous this line, turn its back on the stoicism of the previous century and allow for the personal freedoms that other sports allow and encourage. And approximate who is leading that accuse?

Only fifty-fifty in Harper's own clubhouse, not everyone is lining up behind him on this battlefield. They've just learned to gyre with it. And with him. Here is their take:

From Jayson Werth

This fight to reel in the lost generation -- "that applies to my kids," says the Nationals' 36-year-erstwhile left fielder, a mentor to Harper in many areas, an one-time-school holdout when it comes to this area. "I don't retrieve it applies to me. I'll be gone. It won't be my problem."

To wait at Werth's thick beard and overflowing locks, you lot might recollect he's a rebel himself. But when it comes to how to act on a baseball field, he'southward anything but. His grandpa (Dick "Ducky" Schofield), uncle (Dick Schofield) and stepfather (Dennis Werth) all played in the major leagues. So Werth acts the way they taught him to human action. He hasn't given in to the shifting tide on this argument. And he never expects to. So maybe, he says with a laugh, "I'chiliad the trouble."

He and Harper accept had their debates on this topic. Many times. And because they're so tight on other levels, "we accept a good back-and-forth on this," Werth says. "But mostly, we've agreed to disagree a lot."

Just because he's on the other side of this battle, though, doesn't mean Werth has an issue with the guy who's directing the fight. Exactly the reverse.

"He does love baseball," Werth says of Harper. "And right now, he's 1 of the faces of Major League Baseball. So if they're going to move that demographic, if that's what the game needs, then perchance he'south the right guy to do information technology."

From Ryan Zimmerman

"Information technology's different now," says the Nationals' laid-dorsum first baseman. "It makes me sound really old, fifty-fifty though I'thou not old. But information technology's a different game and a different generation now than when I came up."

Let the tape prove that Ryan Zimmerman is only 31. Just in a mode, he was Bryce Harper in one case. At least in the sense that he was once a 20-year-old big leaguer, growing into being the face of his franchise. Not in the sense that he has whatsoever involvement in letting his personality explode all over every magazine cover, Idiot box screen and Twitter feed on earth.

"That's just this generation, in every sport," Zimmerman says. "Football game. Basketball game. I would say pretty much all sports are usually alee of the curve when it comes to change. Baseball is one of the least-changing sports, one of the hardest to change. Information technology's such an old-school sport. And when you expect at these young kids [in baseball game now], there'due south such a marketplace, in social media and off the field, that these other sports accept been able to take reward of a lot longer than baseball has. And some of these young kids are trying to have advantage of that."

From Dusty Baker

"I always idea I could never prove my real personality or my true feelings on the inside," Bryce Harper's manager says. "And after a while, I didn't really care to. But nowadays ... it probably is important."

Dusty Baker arrived in the big leagues in the late 1960s, when the face up of HIS team was a must-see slugger with a very different demeanor. That would be a gentleman named Henry Aaron. And then Baker speedily learned to imitate Aaron's tranquility dignity.

"Yous take on the personality of the superstar you're playing with, because you lot think that'southward the way to distinction," Baker says. "Hank Aaron's way was: hit a dwelling run so don't talk nigh it, and tell the press you don't know how you lot did it simply you know damn well he did, and so you lot hit some other one. So don't brag. Don't avowal. The 2 people I never heard brag or boast that I was around, as good as they were, were Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax."

Baker looks at Aaron and Koufax as the perfect representatives of their generation. At present he'southward managing a player who appears poised to go the perfect representative of this generation. Baker isn't set to anoint Harper with that label withal. Merely if his brightest star wants to "make baseball fun over again," the manager has no plans of getting in the way.

"It's of import," Bakery says, "because it's of import to him."

What makes Baker good at his job is that he doesn't believe in pushing the way it was when he played onto the men who play for him now. He might encounter his 17-yr-old son do the James Harden "Dab" and shake his head. But he lets his players be themselves, as long as their biggest priority is playing baseball.

"It don't bother me, because the opposition don't care anymore," Baker says. "If they don't care, why should I care? ... If they don't say nothing, I won't. But if they knock you on your ass, yous've gotta live with it."

Harper and his director haven't been around each other long. Simply Harper clearly feels empowered past his boss to first interim like himself -- and not some version of himself that other people desire him to be. What a concept.

"I want to come in here and take fun, show emotion and merely enjoy the game," Harper says. "And that's what Dusty does every single 24-hour interval."

But last week, Harper received an endorsement from a figure even more powerful than his manager -- namely, the commissioner himself. Speaking to the Associated Press Sports Editors, Rob Manfred described Harper as "a spokesman for this generation." How 'bout that?

"I really believe that a player of his stature starting a dialogue near what the sport's going to look like -- and I think that dialogue really involves generally his peers, players on the field -- will produce a positive consequence for the game," Manfred said. "They're young. They meet the globe different. My kids see the globe different than I exercise. And I do think if we want young people to take the game forward, we have to exist tolerant of that dialogue while things change."

And so what do you know? Information technology turns out that even the commissioner wants to (ahem) make baseball fun again. In truth, he and his favorite spokesman both know that it ever has been a blast. But if they're going to get the word out, it looks as if they're going to take to be cool with the reality that it won't merely be Bryce Harper'south bat that will be doing the talking.

It might merely be his cap.