Apr 27, 2016

  • Jayson StarkESPN Senior Writer

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    • Senior writer for ESPN.com
    • 21 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer
    • Author of 3 baseball game books

He leads the league in homers. He leads the league in finish-what-you're-doing-and-turn-on-SportsCenter moments. And, of course, he leads the league in hair. Only in other news, Bryce Harper has a war to fight.

The civilization war.

He might not look the part. But baseball's virtually magnetic player is the Gen. George South. 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 world. The beautiful world of baseball. And amazingly, the fight started with a cap.

"Brand Baseball FUN AGAIN." Four words, stitched in ruby-red onto a white trucker's cap, sitting atop Harper'due south head equally he addressed the media afterward homering on Opening Day. Let the fun begin. Allow the culture state of war begin.

He was "only messing around," he says at present. But messing with the media. And you'll exist shocked to larn that 3 weeks later, Make BASEBALL FUN AGAIN caps and T-shirts are eminently available for purchase all over the internet, not to mention at the Washington Nationals' squad shop.

But hither's the important part: When Harper wriggled that cap onto his head that mean solar day, information technology had nothing to exercise with marketing. He was a man with a message. And he'southward going to make sure nosotros all hear that message for, like, the side by side 2 decades.

"I love this game more than than anything in the entire world," he says. "Merely ..."

But? Was that a "merely?" Information technology sure was. But ... the game has to change. And -- yous need to know this, yous need to exist ready for this -- Bryce Harper is volunteering to drive that change.

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

"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. Just times are changing."

And who is more uniquely positioned to be the agent for change than the most dynamic 23-yr-sometime game-changer in this sport? When Harper arrived in the big leagues, he was 19. He was already a calorie-free-up-the-sky fireball, blazing with eye black, energy and bravado. And what was the reaction of the erstwhile-school earth around him? Suspicion. What else?

Asked if there were times back then when he felt force per unit area not to express his personality, Harper thinks carefully well-nigh how to answer.

"Seriously, at a young age, it's kind of scary to do it," he says, "because you never know what's going to happen. You know, sometimes you do it, and it's like, 'Maybe I shouldn't have done that,' because yous're xix, 20 years one-time and facing a guy who's 35, 36, and he probably isn't going to similar what I just did to him."

Merely now information technology's not so scary anymore. Not for him at to the lowest degree. And Harper is actively working to promote the idea that it shouldn't ever be scary. The culture he is waging this war confronting might never see it that fashion. But Gen. Patton just doesn't become that.

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

"If yous're up, viii-1 or 9-1," Harper says, "you're not going to steal second base. And you're non going to celebrate a homer, up 8-1 or 9-1. Simply game on the line, huge moment, you never know what you're going to practice. It'south something that merely happens. And that's what makes the game fun. It'due south that emotion. Information technology's that burn down. Information technology'southward that competitiveness."

So the Jose Bautista bat flip? Y'all'll find no bigger fan of that flip, exterior of the Bautista family mayhap, than Bryce Harper.

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

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

So on the Culture War mission statement, what'due south the general'due south definition of "fun?" You just got information technology paw-delivered. "Fun" means never having to apologize for expressing genuine joy, as long as information technology's real. And justified. And not mean-spirited.

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

Only even in Harper'southward own clubhouse, not everyone is lining upward behind him on this battlefield. They've just learned to roll 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-twelvemonth-former 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 bristles and overflowing locks, you might think he's a rebel himself. But when it comes to how to human action on a baseball field, he's annihilation merely. His grandad (Dick "Ducky" Schofield), uncle (Dick Schofield) and stepfather (Dennis Werth) all played in the major leagues. So Werth acts the mode they taught him to deed. He hasn't given in to the shifting tide on this statement. And he never expects to. So maybe, he says with a laugh, "I'chiliad the trouble."

He and Harper have had their debates on this topic. Many times. And considering they're so tight on other levels, "nosotros take 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 hateful Werth has an result with the guy who's directing the fight. Exactly the contrary.

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

From Ryan Zimmerman

"It's different now," says the Nationals' laid-back first baseman. "It makes me audio really old, fifty-fifty though I'm not old. Simply it's a different game and a different generation at present than when I came up."

Let the record show that Ryan Zimmerman is only 31. Merely in a way, he was Bryce Harper once. At to the lowest degree in the sense that he was one time a xx-year-erstwhile big leaguer, growing into being the confront of his franchise. Non in the sense that he has any interest in letting his personality explode all over every mag cover, TV screen and Twitter feed on world.

"That's simply this generation, in every sport," Zimmerman says. "Football. Basketball. I would say pretty much all sports are ordinarily ahead of the curve when information technology comes to change. Baseball is one of the least-changing sports, one of the hardest to change. It'due south such an old-schoolhouse sport. And when you expect at these young kids [in baseball game now], there's 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 accept advantage of that."

From Dusty Baker

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

Dusty Baker arrived in the big leagues in the tardily 1960s, when the face up of HIS team was a must-come across slugger with a very different demeanor. That would exist a admirer named Henry Aaron. So Baker quickly learned to imitate Aaron'south repose dignity.

"Yous accept on the personality of the superstar you're playing with, because you remember that's the manner to stardom," Baker says. "Hank Aaron's way was: hit a home run and so don't talk near information technology, and tell the press you don't know how you did it but you know damn well he did, and and then you lot striking some other i. So don't brag. Don't boast. The ii people I never heard brag or boast that I was around, equally 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's managing a player who appears poised to become the perfect representative of this generation. Baker isn't ready to bless Harper with that label even so. But if his brightest star wants to "make baseball fun again," the manager has no plans of getting in the fashion.

"It'southward important," Baker says, "because information technology'south important to him."

What makes Bakery proficient 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 come across his 17-twelvemonth-sometime son do the James Harden "Dab" and shake his head. But he lets his players be themselves, equally long as their biggest priority is playing baseball game.

"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 donkey, you've gotta alive with it."

Harper and his manager oasis't been around 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 desire to come in hither and take fun, show emotion and only enjoy the game," Harper says. "And that's what Dusty does every single day."

But last week, Harper received an endorsement from a effigy fifty-fifty more powerful than his managing director -- 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 actually believe that a role player of his stature starting a dialogue about what the sport's going to look like -- and I retrieve that dialogue really involves mostly his peers, players on the field -- volition produce a positive result for the game," Manfred said. "They're immature. They run across the earth different. My kids run across the world different than I do. And I do think if nosotros want young people to take the game forwards, nosotros have to be tolerant of that dialogue while things change."

So what practise you lot know? It turns out that even the commissioner wants to (ahem) make baseball fun again. In truth, he and his favorite spokesman both know that it always 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 only be Bryce Harper'due south bat that will be doing the talking.

Information technology might but be his cap.