It was a good baseball Friday night for the Chicago Cubs, powered by Javier Baez‘s four hits and baserunning magic:
I think players like Javy are great for baseball, particularly in a time when the sport, despite record revenues, is skewing older and is working to recruit new, younger fans. It is fine to have fun in baseball, and Javy is certainly fun even when he is in a slump. There are plenty of instances of fun in baseball every night, with bat flips after hits, fist pumps after strikeouts, and antics like this from a couple of greats:
I think that since baseball is pretty much a kid’s game, you would expect the elite athletes who play the sport to exhibit some youthful exuberance when they get to do this for a living.