Man today’s players just don’t respect the game or their opponents. Years ago, they never would’ve celebrated on the field:
Yes, that’s Kirk Gibson celebrating a home run off of Goose Gossage. That was from the 1984 World Series. You know what I couldn’t find anywhere? Gossage condemning Gibson for the celebration. Sure, it would seem like sour grapes, but he had a platform then and didn’t use it.
Now? Well now, the Hall of Famer rails against how players today celebrate. He called Jose Bautista and Yoenis Cespedes out for their bat-flips and said they were an embarrassment and disgrace to the game.
“Jose Bautista is a f–king disgrace to the game,” Gossage said, adding that “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.”
He’s apparently taking issue with the bat flips:
Gossage comes off like an old man lamenting how things were better in his day. He is remembering the days when if you hit a home run, you put your head down and rounded the bases. No one out there showed any emotion so as to not show anyone up. They knew if they did the pitcher was going to stick one in your ear. The thing is that he has selective memory. Additionally, times have changed.
In an ESPN the Magazine interview, Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper shared his thoughts on player celebrating on the field:
“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 who have flair. If that’s Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom 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 in 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. If a guy pumps his fist at me on the mound, I’m going to go, ‘Yeah, you got me. Good for you. Hopefully I’ll get you next time.’ That’s what makes the game fun.”
Overall, Harper’s thoughts represent a a change in the culture of baseball.
Players today are more apt to celebrate on the field. Their celebrations and demonstrative bat-flips are more elaborate. When these celebrations happen, players seem to take it the same way Heyward says he takes it.
Sure, there are current players who feel differently than Bautista, Cespedes, and Heyward. Apparently, there were people like Kirk Gibson who felt differently than Goose Gossage when it came to celebrating a home run back in the day when Gossage pitched.
If this is the current culture of the sport, we should all accept it. As long as these bat flips don’t result in players getting plunked, who are we to judge? In fact, what Harper states is that the celebrations fuel him to get the pitcher the next time. If these celebrations are both fun and bring out the best in everyone on the field, how can this be anything but good for baseball?
For baseball’s part, they seem to be embracing it showing the bat flips in commercials and putting them on YouTube. Baseball is doing it because the times have changed and they know it!
As for Gossage, he may want to look in the mirror because many will agree that his poorly timed outrage on this is what was really an “embarrassment and disgrace.” I’m sure his Goose is getting cooked on Twitter as we speak.
