The MLB faces a changing of the guard that encompasses far more than just bat flips
The generational divide in baseball is becoming increasingly prevalent, and has been brought to the forefront in recent weeks with comments by players on both sides of retirement.
The old boys club is championed by Goose Gossage, hall of fame hurler and current broadcaster. Meanwhile, the new-school side is exemplified by Bryce Harper, 23-year-old phenom and reigning NL MVP.
Gossage recently ripped into new-school attitudes and baseball “nerds,” voicing his disgust with the modern game in a 10-minute radio interview.
“[Jose] Bautista is a f*cking disgrace to the game,” Gossage told ESPN. “He’s embarrassing to all the Latin players, whoever played before him. Throwing his bat and acting like a fool, like all those guys in Toronto. [Yoenis] Cespedes, same thing.”
Gossage’s tirade certainly isn’t an isolated incident, with fellow hall of famer Johnny Bench reiterating his comments on bat flipping a week later.
“You can flip your bat,” Bench said on DirecTV’s Rich Eisen Show. “We had guys do that … and the next time up there was chin music. And if you play that way, that’s fine.”
Gossage and Bench are baseball traditionalists. They have a romanticized and nostalgic view of the era they played in, the good ol’ days, and in a lot of ways, they make a compelling argument.
The unwritten rules of baseball are sacred to many. They’ve governed the league for decades and are essential to generations of baseball players. But in a league nearing its 150th year, how many of these rules can stay relevant to the ever-changing modern player?
Whether we like it or not, the baseball code is determined by those who play the game, and in an era where baseball is changing faster than ever, some of the unwritten rules may fall by the wayside. The MLB now exists in an era where media consumption and its immediacy is at an all-time high. Double-plays are turned into GIFs to be retweeted, players are snapchatting their commutes to the ballpark, and bat flips are being turned into Christmas sweaters.
Bat flips are certainly a hot topic, but so is chewing tobacco, and pitchers’ helmets. Some will contend that this generation is entitled and coddled, but others will argue that they represent a changing of the guard that is not only necessary for baseball, but for society. The question isn’t “Is the game changing?” The question is how much and how soon?
The current game brings quandaries that would be unfathomable for previous generations.
Under what section of “The Code” does perusing babes’ Instagram pics on the clubhouse toilet fall?
Elder statesman and bat flip aficionado David Oritz recently came to the defence of the league’s bat tossers. “Whenever somebody criticizes a power hitter for what we do after we hit a homerun, I consider that person someone who is not able to hit a homer ever in his life,” Ortiz told the Boston Globe. Ortiz says that the people he sees complaining are either pitchers, or people who have never played the game. To those individuals, Ortiz says, “You don’t know anything about it. And if you don’t know anything about it, [shut up]. [Shut up]. Seriously. If you don’t know anything about it, [shut up], because that is another level.”
Jose Bautista’s bat flip is an extreme example of this new-school attitude. It was a brash and passionate expression of intensity and arrogance. He bested Sam Dyson, and the flip was the audacious exclamation point. But in the context of the game, do Bautista’s actions deserve to be lambasted by traditionalists?
For many Jays fans, this was their first experience with October baseball. For most casual fans, the Jays generally become irrelevant before the All-Star break. That was the biggest swing in the last 20 years for the Toronto Blue Jays, a team with the unique attribute of having an entire nation behind them.
The game will always have its critics and cynics, just like in Gossage’s era, but change is inevitable, and should only be dictated by those that play the game.
Should a professional athlete, in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans, be expected to behave as a robot, restraining basic human emotions in what might be the most intense moment of their career?
That’s a clown question, bro.