It's time for Bryce Harper to take a step back. |
Okay, so he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was 16. Okay, so he played in the All Star Game after playing just two months in the majors. And okay, so he’s slugged more home runs as a teenager than Mickey Mantle, along the way walloping balls like this one that shun any notion of reality or feasibility. But that doesn’t make him bigger than the game. It doesn’t elevate him above the standard of integrity that other ballplayers recognize. (Okay, not you Vicente Padilla.) He’s just a National; baseball is a national pastime.
When Bryce Harper becomes a national pastime – and I don’t know how a person goes about doing that – he can slam his helmet all he wants. He can wine and bitch and moan about calls that didn’t go his way until the cows round third and come on home. Hell, he can even wear gold cleats at the All Star Game and lose as many fly balls in the night sky as he desires. But for now, in this, his not-quite-a-national-pastime being, he needs to expunge all the charades and antics and self-promotions from his game and just play baseball.
After all, he’s not paid to slam helmets, smash bats and punish water coolers like they just told some caustic Yo-Mama joke. (The joke didn’t even make him that mad, but he had to beat the cooler into a pulp to assert his own superiority, to show everyone that he’s Bryce Harper and he takes shit from no one!) In fact, he’s probably paid negative for all these temper tantrums (See: Fined), although it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he we’re slapped on the wrist and told “Now, now, Bryce, don’t make us take away your aluminum bat during batting practice.”
And isn’t that the worst of it? The way he is coddled and spoiled, the way he disgraces the game and is commended for his fighting spirit, for his intensity, for his compete level. Do you know who has a fighting spirit and an intensity and a compete level higher than anyone else’s? Derek Jeter. And do you know who isn’t seen throwing batting helmets and bludgeoning bat racks? Derek Jeter. He doesn’t need to convince us of his hunger to win or prove to us his investment in the game with sideshows of explosive – and destructive – anger. We can see it in the way he plays, not in the way he acts.
Bryce Harper acts all the time. He exaggerates and dramatizes situations like a bad actor in a Shakespeare play. We all see through it. The baseball diamond is a stage for majestic homeruns and dazzling defense – for honest displays of greatness. Its show is not scripted or rehearsed. It’s real. But when Harper steams down the first base line, is called out on a not-so-questionable play, and reacts by hurling his helmet to the ground as he passes the umpire, just to show how much he cares, the stage loses its value. The show becomes hollow.
Listen, Harper can play. He is dynamic in the outfield and he can rake like it’s a Sunday afternoon in New England. There’s no denying that. But his performance is littered with pretense - so much of what he does is a guise. And it’s all so transparent, which more than anything is an indication of his youth. Take last night, when in the top of the 9thinning, with the Nationals ahead 8-4, Harper rapped into a 3-6-3 double play, and then ripped his helmet off and chucked it at the ground, disgusted with the call. Even if the game were close, this kind of childishness would be unwarranted, though it may have been genuine. But when winning by 4, it’s incomprehensible. It doesn’t even make sense. It’s fake. For if all he cares about is helping his team win – as he says he does and as any decent ballplayer should – then grounding into a double play in the top of 9th inning in a game that has already been won can not seriously make him that upset. He wanted us to believe it did, but we’re smarter than that. We know affecting from competing, acting from playing.
Harper has major league talent. He has proven that with his prodigious power and silky left-handed stroke. In this department, he is beyond his years. His performance certainly belies his age. But his attitude reveals it. He’s still the kid who is keeled over, huffing and puffing after 1 sprint to show Coach how hard he ran. He’s still the kid who is slide-tackling when a simple toe-poke would suffice, to show Coach how hard he’s playing. He’s still the kid who is conjuring up tears after a loss to show everyone how much he cares.
He’s still the kid who is all about himself, who has gotten a taste of the spotlight and now wants the entire stage. We shouldn’t give it to him. He’s been given enough things in his life already.
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