Burgos: Will Jose Bautista’s bat flip signal turning point in acceptance of Latino culture?
From SABR member Adrian Burgos Jr. at The Sporting News on October 15, 2015:
They were the bat flips tweeted, vined, and shared around the baseball world.
The majestic bat flips of Jose Bautista and Yoenis Cespedes after key playoff key playoff homers in recent days mark a departure from the culture of MLB.
The two Latinos had taken very different paths (Bautista from the Dominican Republic, Cespedes from Cuba) to arrive at their grand moments, digging in at the plate, the weight of the season on their shoulders. It is what they and many of us dreamed of as young boys and girls in backyards, sandlots and ballparks of our youth.
These big playoffs moments don’t come to every star ballplayer — the recently departed Ernie Banks never got to step to the plate during the playoffs and he is accompanied by many others lesser accomplished players who never got to dig in at such a moment.
Read the full article here: http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2015-10-15/jose-bautista-bat-flip-blue-jays-rangers-dyson-yoenis-cespedes?
Originally published: October 15, 2015. Last Updated: October 15, 2015.