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Bryce Harper cuts up batting gloves after mammoth home run
Baseball players are creatures of habit. When things are going well, you change nothing about your routine. When things are going poorly, you have to find the one thing holding you back. When you're Washington Nationals slugger Bryce Harper and you find the one thing holding you back, you cut it up into little pieces and throw it in the garbage.
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That's precisely what Harper did after hitting a mammoth home run to the third deck during Thursday's game. Almost immediately after rounding the bases, Harper was spotted in the dugout cutting up his batting gloves.
Harper, who was hitting just .194 in May coming into the contest, apparently decided his batting gloves were part of the problem. After striking out with them during his first at-bat of the game, Harper ditched the batting gloves later on. Based on how hard his sixth inning home run was hit, we're going to say he correctly identified the problem.
[Elsewhere: This college player executed the bat flip of the year]
As for cutting them up, well, it wasn't some weird ritual done to cleanse the evil baseball spirits haunting Harper during the month. Harper actually had a much more reasonable explanation for the complete destruction of his uniform accessories, according to Bill Ladson of MLB.com.
"It's just so people don't sell them on eBay, to tell you the truth," Harper said. "I always cut the batting gloves up, and they're ripped on the top of the hand, and I had the bat boy come in and give me another pair, and I put them on and ripped them again. I guess the baseball gods don't want me to wear the batting gloves right now.
"I went up and hit a homer and came back and cut 'em up just so guys don't come out of the trash can and grab 'em and sell 'em. It's happened before, so cut 'em up now."
At least that explains his odd actions following the blast. We can't say the same for the people who dumpster dive for Harper's batting gloves just to sell them online. That's just weird.
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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik
