Let’s stop with the bubble-wrapped nonsense: Let Madison Bumgarner hit in the MLB Home Run Derby.
There is maybe — maybe! — one tiny argument to be considered against it, and it’s the very 21st century, over-concerned, overly-cautious saw, “He might get hurt.”
Well, yes.
And I’ll answer with the age-old, not-that-concerned, not-that-cautious saw: He could get hurt anytime he takes batting practice.
Or pitches.
Or shags fly balls.
Or crosses the street. Or drives his truck down the Embarcadero. Or, as Bumgarner himself dryly pointed out, he could get hurt riding a horse in front of 40,000 manic Giants fans as he helps raise a World Series flag.
But the Giants were OK with him doing that, because it was the glory of the flag and all, right?
(By the way, Madison, that was a great line. Service winner from MadBum to Giants management.)
Lately, as a 48-year-old, non-hip, suburban dad, I’ve been getting chuckles from my younger, much hipper followers on Twitter when I tweet out one of those “Dat/doe” tweets, like: “Dat Bogut block, doe” after the Warriors center rejects another offering on the hardwood.
So I’ll dive into another younger man’s phrase for this Bumgarner HR Derby argument: YOLO.
For the 40-and-over crowd, we say: You Only Live Once.
This is an intersection of time in which Madison Bumgarner is 26 years old, entering the peak of his physical prime of strength and flexibility, and the chances of him straining an oblique taking some chops in the Derby would be at their most minimal. This is also an intersection of time in which Madison Bumgarner is 26 years old, has climbed the mountaintop in his sport, is brimming with confidence and is excited about doing this. This is also an intersection of time in which Madison Bumgarner is 26 years old and is hitting the ball better than ever, and wants to show it off in an exhibition of fun, thrills and memories.
By now, most of you have seen the statistic that in Madison Bumgarner’s last 190 plate appearances, he has 11 home runs — the same amount as Bryce Harper and Mike Trout had in their final 190 plate appearances.
Yeah. That happened.
Look, Bumgarner is our modern day Babe Ruth in terms of jaw-dropping baseball feats, on the mound and at the plate. Not coincidentally, both Ruth and Bumgarner each hit 14 home runs while pitching around 1,250 innings. Would we deny the Bambino in the MLB Home Run Derby? Sure as heck hope not.
Even more than that, Bumgarner has crossover appeal, like a mythical figure that calls to mind America’s past. The America of today — tech entrepreneurs selfishly trying to make as much money as possible, all the while writing op-ed letters about how San Francisco’s underbelly displeases their skinny-jeaned sensibilities — is not the America we romanticize from our country’s founding.
Somewhere under the foam of their decaf non-fat soy lattes, modern Americans yearn for the country’s early days, when ranchers and cowboys and pioneers did hard work selflessly and without fanfare, never stopping to tweet once. We romanticize an earlier day when hard work produced tangible results on the trail West, not work that disappeared into the cloud of cyberspace.
That’s where Bumgarner’s appeal hits us in our historical guts. His persona represents the early days of our country; when stoicism and physicality cleared the brush and brought home the crops. Or, when brute strength — bare hands grabbing a piece of wood and clobbering a baseball over a fence, way over the fence — makes us stand and cheer.
We need a blast of this now, to stand and cheer at a marvelous feat, more than ever, especially in the division of an election year.
Someone more clever than me beat me to the punch at ESPN. They called him “The MadBumbino.” I love it. Let the MadBumbino hit. Let’s have fun and make history.