April 27, 2016

  • Jayson StarkESPN Senior Author

    Shut

    • Senior author for ESPN.com
    • 21 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer
    • Author of three baseball game books

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

The civilization war.

He might not look the office. Just baseball's nearly magnetic histrion is the Gen. George Southward. Patton of the baseball culture war. He sees what the men around him don't. He says what the men around him won't. So he is willing to fight to save the world. His globe. The beautiful globe of baseball. And amazingly, the fight started with a cap.

"Make BASEBALL FUN Over again." Four words, stitched in reddish onto a white trucker's cap, sitting atop Harper's caput as he addressed the media afterward homering on Opening Day. Let the fun brainstorm. Allow the civilisation state of war begin.

He was "but messing around," he says now. Only messing with the media. And you'll be shocked to acquire that three weeks later on, MAKE Baseball game FUN Over again caps and T-shirts are eminently available for purchase all over the net, not to mention at the Washington Nationals' team store.

Simply here's the important part: When Harper wriggled that cap onto his head that mean solar day, it had nothing to do with marketing. He was a man with a message. And he'due south going to brand sure we all hear that message for, like, the next two decades.

"I honey this game more than annihilation in the entire world," he says. "But ..."

Simply? Was that a "just?" It sure was. But ... the game has to modify. And -- y'all need to know this, you lot need to be set for this -- Bryce Harper is volunteering to bulldoze that change.

When he told ESPN The Mag this wintertime that "baseball is tired ... because you lot can't express yourself," he knew exactly what he was doing. Knew exactly what he was maxim. Knew exactly why he was saying information technology.

"When I was doing the article, I knew information technology was going to be a good 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. But times are changing."

And who is more uniquely positioned to be the agent for change than the most dynamic 23-year-old game-changer in this sport? When Harper arrived in the big leagues, he was 19. He was already a low-cal-upward-the-heaven fireball, blazing with centre black, free energy and bravado. And what was the reaction of the onetime-school world effectually him? Suspicion. What else?

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

"Seriously, at a young age, it's kind of scary to do it," he says, "considering you never know what's going to happen. Yous know, sometimes you do it, and it'due south like, 'Perchance I shouldn't have done that,' because yous're 19, 20 years old and facing a guy who's 35, 36, and he probably isn't going to like what I merely did to him."

Only now it'due south not so scary anymore. Not for him at least. And Harper is actively working to promote the idea that it shouldn't always exist scary. The culture he is waging this state of war against might never run across it that way. But Gen. Patton just doesn't get that.

He's totally cool with some unwritten rules. Simply most of them? They would brand more sense to him if they would just factor in the meaning of the moment.

"If you're up, 8-one or 9-1," Harper says, "y'all're non going to steal second base. And y'all're not going to celebrate a homer, upwardly 8-ane or 9-i. But game on the line, huge moment, you lot never know what you're going to do. It's something that but happens. And that's what makes the game fun. It's that emotion. It'due south that fire. It's that competitiveness."

So the Jose Bautista bat flip? Yous'll find no bigger fan of that flip, outside of the Bautista family perhaps, than Bryce Harper.

"That was just a huge situation," Harper says. "And it'south like I was maxim. You never know what you're going to do. Y'all take a whole country backside you. And being able to evidence an emotion in the playoffs ... I mean, I have no idea what I would have done if I had hit that homer. I accept no clue. So I enjoyed seeing it. And I think Major League Baseball game enjoyed seeing it. They put information technology everywhere, so they must have.

"What an incredible moment for baseball, simply every bit a fan of the sport," Harper adds. "I mean, how many NFL or NBA or Olympian or any athletes -- they all know about the Bautista bat flip, because it'due south incredible, considering it'due south out there. He put information technology out there. It's fun. The emotion was amazing."

So on the Culture War mission statement, what's the full general'south definition of "fun?" Y'all but got information technology mitt-delivered. "Fun" means never having to repent for expressing genuine joy, every bit long as it'south existent. And justified. And not mean-spirited.

If baseball is ever going to connect with its lost generation, Harper'south generation, information technology has to cross this line, turn its back on the stoicism of the previous century and allow for the personal freedoms that other sports permit and encourage. And guess who is leading that charge?

But fifty-fifty in Harper's own clubhouse, non everyone is lining up behind him on this battlefield. They've merely learned to ringlet with it. And with him. Here is their accept:

From Jayson Werth

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

To look at Werth's thick beard and overflowing locks, y'all might think he's a rebel himself. But when it comes to how to human activity on a baseball field, he's anything merely. His granddad (Dick "Ducky" Schofield), uncle (Dick Schofield) and stepfather (Dennis Werth) all played in the major leagues. And so Werth acts the way they taught him to act. He hasn't given in to the shifting tide on this argument. And he never expects to. And so maybe, he says with a express mirth, "I'one thousand the problem."

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

But considering he's on the other side of this battle, though, doesn't mean Werth has an result with the guy who's directing the fight. Exactly the opposite.

"He does love baseball," Werth says of Harper. "And right now, he's ane of the faces of Major League Baseball. So if they're going to motility that demographic, if that'south what the game needs, so perhaps he's the correct guy to exercise it."

From Ryan Zimmerman

"It'due south dissimilar now," says the Nationals' laid-dorsum first baseman. "It makes me sound really one-time, even though I'm non one-time. But it'due south a dissimilar game and a different generation now than when I came up."

Let the record show that Ryan Zimmerman is only 31. But in a way, he was Bryce Harper one time. At least in the sense that he was one time a 20-yr-old big leaguer, growing into beingness the face of his franchise. Not in the sense that he has any interest in letting his personality explode all over every magazine comprehend, Boob tube screen and Twitter feed on globe.

"That's just this generation, in every sport," Zimmerman says. "Football game. Basketball. I would say pretty much all sports are usually ahead of the bend when it comes to alter. Baseball is 1 of the least-changing sports, ane of the hardest to modify. It's such an erstwhile-school sport. And when you await at these young kids [in baseball now], there'due south such a market, in social media and off the field, that these other sports have been able to have advantage of a lot longer than baseball game has. And some of these young kids are trying to take advantage of that."

From Dusty Baker

"I always idea I could never show my real personality or my true feelings on the inside," Bryce Harper'due south managing director says. "And after a while, I didn't actually care to. But nowadays ... it probably is important."

Dusty Bakery arrived in the big leagues in the late 1960s, when the face of HIS team was a must-meet slugger with a very different demeanor. That would exist a admirer named Henry Aaron. Then Baker quickly learned to imitate Aaron'southward quiet dignity.

"Yous take on the personality of the superstar you're playing with, because y'all call back that'southward the manner to distinction," Bakery says. "Hank Aaron's way was: hit a habitation run and so don't talk about it, and tell the press you don't know how y'all did it but you lot know damn well he did, then you lot hitting another ane. And then don't brag. Don't boast. The two 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. Now he'due south managing a player who appears poised to become the perfect representative of this generation. Baker isn't gear up to anoint Harper with that characterization all the same. But if his brightest star wants to "make baseball game fun once more," the manager has no plans of getting in the way.

"It's important," Baker says, "because it's important to him."

What makes Bakery proficient at his job is that he doesn't believe in pushing the mode it was when he played onto the men who play for him at present. He might run across his 17-year-old son do the James Harden "Dab" and shake his caput. But he lets his players be themselves, as long as their biggest priority is playing baseball game.

"It don't bother me, because the opposition don't intendance anymore," Baker says. "If they don't care, why should I care? ... If they don't say nada, I won't. Merely if they knock you on your ass, you've gotta live with it."

Harper and his director haven't been effectually each other long. Merely Harper conspicuously feels empowered by his boss to start acting like himself -- and not some version of himself that other people want him to be. What a concept.

"I want to come up in here and have fun, show emotion and just savor the game," Harper says. "And that's what Dusty does every single day."

Simply 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 equally "a spokesman for this generation." How 'bout that?

"I actually believe that a player of his stature starting a dialogue about what the sport's going to await like -- and I think that dialogue really involves generally his peers, players on the field -- will produce a positive result for the game," Manfred said. "They're young. They come across the world different. My kids see the earth different than I exercise. And I practise think if we want immature people to take the game forward, we have to exist tolerant of that dialogue while things change."

Then what practice you know? Information technology turns out that even the commissioner wants to (ahem) make baseball fun over again. In truth, he and his favorite spokesman both know that it e'er has been a smash. But if they're going to get the word out, it looks every bit if they're going to accept to be absurd with the reality that it won't only exist Bryce Harper'southward bat that will be doing the talking.

It might just be his cap.