Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred commented on the game’s changing culture in a meeting Thursday with the Associated Press Sports Editors, per the AP (via ESPN.com), while also discussing expansion.
He touched on what has become a controversial topic in the sport: celebrations, which have long been outlawed in the game by baseball’s unwritten rules:
I think to the extent that you believe, and I actually do, that Bryce Harper is a spokesman for this generation, I suspect that you will see more exuberance from our players on the field.
I think it’s a good thing. I think that to the extent that you’re trying to market to a younger audience, our younger players taking control of the definition of those unwritten rules is a lot better than some guy who’s 67 years saying I did it that way and you ought do it the same way.
Those comments are in stark contrast to the remarks made by National Baseball Hall of Famer and former pitcher Goose Gossage, who called Toronto Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista “a disgrace to the game” after he flipped his bat following a go-ahead home run in the seventh inning of Game 5 during last year’s American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers.
Gossage also said Harper “doesn’t know squat about the game” and has “no respect” for baseball, per the AP’s report.
Harper has been seen donning a “Make Baseball Fun Again” hat this season and also expressed his disdain for the game’s unwritten rules in an interview with Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine:
Baseball’s tired. It’s a tired sport, because you can’t express yourself. You can’t do what people in other sports do. I’m not saying baseball is, you know, boring or anything like that, but it’s the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flair. If that’s Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom or Manny Machado or Joc Pederson or Andrew McCutchen or Yasiel Puig—there’s so many guys in the game now who are so much fun.
Jose Fernandez is a great example. Jose Fernandez will strike you out and stare you down into the dugout and pump his fist. And if you hit a homer and pimp it? He doesn’t care. Because you got him. That’s part of the game. It’s not the old feeling—hoorah … if you pimp a homer, I’m going to hit you right in the teeth. No. If a guy pimps a homer for a game-winning shot … I mean—sorry.
And Manfred himself directly disagreed with Gossage, per the AP:
Goose and his peers developed a set of unwritten understandings about what was acceptable on the field when he played the game, and I think the generation of players that are on the field today are going to do the same thing. I think that it may not be exactly the same as it was when Goose played, and you know, from my perspective that’s good thing.
Baseball’s culture and sense of unwritten rules remain controversial and complex. There are those camps that believe showboating and celebrations have no place in the game, as they make an opponent look bad. Doing so has long been punishable by being plunked by a pitcher, a practice Harper—and many others—despise.
The newer generation doesn’t seem to be against celebrations, at least not as uniformly as past generations.
There are also cultural differences at play, as Manfred mentioned in the AP report, as baseball’s unwritten rules are different for players depending on if they grew up playing in Latin America, the United States or in Asia:
The various groups that participate on the field are going to have to work through a middle ground. I do believe our players understand diversity and that even though there may be differences along these lines, they will find a way to a middle ground that’s acceptable to the vast majority of those players.
Finally, the commissioner spoke about expansion to 32 teams.
“Multiples of fours just work better (for scheduling) than multiples of fives,” Manfred said, per Joe Knowles of the Chicago Tribune.
However, he added that “stadium issues in Tampa Bay and Oakland would need to be resolved” before adding two teams would be feasible and hinted that expansion could be “outside the contiguous 48 states.”
One interesting factor in expansion would be whether MLB changed its current three-division layout per league. With 32 teams in baseball and presumably 16 teams in the National League and American League, a four-division layout of four teams apiece would likely be on the table.
The alternative would be keeping the three-division layout, with one division in each league having an additional team.
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