It seems like whenever a big-league player decides to get creative with his uniform accessories, MLB is there to step in and kill the fun.
That happened — almost — to Bryce Harper with the ink barely dry on his 13-year Phillies contract. You probably remember the image, six seasons later: Harper on Opening Day in 2019, on his feet a pair of neon green beauties decorated like the Phillie Phanatic.
Phillies Director of Clubhouse Services Phil Sheridan shared on Wednesday’s edition of Phillies Backstage with [Phanatic’s “best friend” Tom] Burgoyne and [Director of Fun and Games John] Brazer that the league didn’t like them quite as much as Phillies fans did.
Harper had sent Sheridan to receive the cleats from a representative at Under Armour, who predicted that the league wouldn’t be happy with them. Sheridan, though, said he knew that the Phanatic green was actually one of the Phillies’ official team colors, so he didn’t anticipate any blowback.
“Third inning, I’m in my office doing something, I get a call from MLB, the league office: ‘You gotta go out and get those shoes off Harper,’” Sheridan remembered. “I’m like, ‘There’s no way.’”
Sheridan said he told the league he was confident the shoes were permitted. MLB called him back in the seventh inning, backtracking and agreeing.
“At the end of the day,” Sheridan said of his train of thought, “I’m not gonna get ‘em either way.”
It’s amusing to imagine such a scene: Harper heads into the dugout after a 1-2-3 third inning by Aaron Nola, and by the time he’s jogging back out to right field for the fourth, the bodacious neon green, eyeballed footwear that had already gone viral on social media has been replaced by milquetoast red and white gear. Or, even more amusing, that third inning is delayed by Sheridan jogging out from the first base dugout, carrying alternative shoes for a sold out Citizens Bank Park to watch their new slugger swap his shoes in the right field grass.
Only in MLB could such a scene exist (and not because innings and right fields only exist in baseball). Credit to the league for realizing its fault and retracting its demand four innings later, but the fact that it levied it in the first place is quintessential Major League Baseball.
Must-read (or listen) Phillies content
- Listen to that full episode of Phillies Backstage with Burgoyne and Brazer here.
- Rhys Hoskins isn’t going back on the free-agent market yet, as Bailey Digh covers.
- The Scott Kingery Era is officially over — for real this time. Ty Daubert has the news.
- There are three new investors in the Phillies’ ownership group. Destiny Lugardo explains what it means — and what else it could mean. Juan Soto, anyone?
- Speaking of Phillies ownership, John Middleton commented to the Inquirer recently on the club’s payroll and whether they’d go over the third luxury tax threshold.
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