Bryce Harper will be in trouble if he repeats the mistake, says Ozzie Guillen - MLB News
After what happened the other day between the Miami Marlins’ manager Ozzie Guillen and the Washington Nationals’ rookie outfielder Bryce Harper, the former believes if the latter does not learn from his mistakes, he will face trouble in his career.
Guillen is of the view that he can condone his act once and can respect the fact that he is too young, but he will be doing injustice with his potential if he fails to give up unprofessional etiquettes.
During the game on Sunday, Harper used pine tar too high on bat in order to ease the grip on it.
As per the rule, while up to a certain extent batters can use pine tar, anything beyond it is considered illegitimate.
This was exactly what motivated the Marlins’ manager Ozzie Guillen to shout concerns about it on Sunday as soon as he realised that Harper’s pine tar was too high. He signalled to Harper while he was talking position on the plate, communicating with him
what he felt was wrong with his bat.
Due to this, an exchange of harsh words ensued after the game between the Nationals and the Marlins’ manager.
Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson blamed Guillen for intimidating his players.
Guillen denied this allegation immediately, clarifying that he just wanted to make sure the rules were being followed.
Now, as a day has passed, both managers have cooled down as they try to take the matter as an incident to learn lessons from instead of making an unnecessary fuss over it.
“I don’t want any problems,” Guillen said. “I just told the umpire, I just told the third base coach. Who cares what they think? I think I was very gentlemen for letting him know he was using something illegal. I don’t make a big deal out of it. They make
a big deal out of it. Like I say, I like this kid. I think this kid is good for baseball. He’s going to be better. But if this kid continues to do that [expletive], he might not make it.”
Regardless of who was at-fault, one will hope that Harper can take the initial experience as a Major Leaguer and a source for eventually becoming a matured player.
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