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The internet is a crazy place full of memes (Bryce Harper pronounces that "Mem-ays") and GIFs (which Bryce Harper prounounces Jiffs)... where a quote like "That's a clown question, bro" can explode into a nationwide phenomenon.
Okay, we don't know how Harper pronounces "GIFs", but we do know that the 23-year-old defending NL MVP is a child of the internet who knows how to get a message across.
Buy your own "Make Baseball Fun Again" t-shirt HERE!
Washington's 2010 no.1 overall pick, who made a next-level breakthrough last season for the Nationals, knows that there is a big megaphone that comes with being one of the top players and ambassadors of the national pastime.
Harper is using his voice for the power of good. Or at least to support self-expression.
Harper told ESPN's Tim Keown this Spring that he thought it was time to change the unwritten rules of baseball to allow players to express their personalities, explaining that it was a "tired" game:
"Baseball's tired," Harper said. "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."
Harper is determined to Make Baseball Fun Again. He means it too.
That's why he got himself a hat that plays on a familiar catchphrase and used his postgame interview following the Nats' season opener in Atlanta to tell the world he wants to "Make Baseball Fun Again":
Bryce Harper was sporting a Trump-esque "Make Baseball Fun Again" cap postgame.
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) April 5, 2016
Harper wore a trucker hat that said Make Baseball Fun Again during his postgame media scrum.
— Chase Hughes (@chasehughesCSN) April 5, 2016
Bryce Harper conducted his postgame interview in a hat reading "Make baseball fun again."
— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) April 5, 2016
Sporting a cap that said, "Make Baseball Fun Again," Bryce Harper talks about the... https://t.co/rbmuC150pm pic.twitter.com/AwPylmxEhX
— Eddie Matz (@ESPNeddiematz) April 5, 2016
If you think for a second that Harper didn't know what he was doing by wearing that hat, you don't know Bryce Harper and you haven't been listening to what he's been saying. Do you want to join the movement?
Do you want to help "Make Baseball Fun Again"?
Our friends at BreakingT, a DC-based sports apparel start-up, were already emailing us about "Make Baseball Fun Again" t-shirts while we were putting together a post about Harper's new cap on Monday night.
If you buy a t-shirt through this link (or the one above or below) they will also track your order and reward us with a little bit of money from each sale. Buy local. Support Harper.
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