7 extravagant celebration suggestions for batters giving up the bat flip in 2016
Bat flips are the best. Some might say they're an elegant art form. When you see a really good one, like this from the Venezuelan Winter League, it can have the same effect as the first time a lightsaber gets fired up in "The Force Awakens" -- you don't know how to put exactly what you're feeling into comprehendible words.
But with preeminent bat flip maestro Yasiel Puig's announcement that he was cutting down heading into last season, and new Twin Byung Ho Park reining in his KBO exploits for the transition to MLB in 2016, it would only take Jose Bautista disavowing his ALDS masterpiece before we'd have something of a concerning trend on our hands. What if MLB players just suddenly stopped flipping their bats altogether in the coming year, as some sort of collective New Year's resolution? Talk about a disturbance in the Force.
In the interest of getting ahead of that trend, we want to propose a few options for players considering giving up the flip.
1. Celebrate a home run with some baseball bat air guitar-ing (or air violin-ing, air cello-ing, etc.)
2. Similarly, use the bat as a fake microphone and do some in-game karaoke
3. Use the bat to write your name in the dirt around home plate
4. After homering, ride the bat around the bases like it is your trusty steed
5. Instead of being a bat flipper, be a bat flapper and hold your bat horizontal while you Charleston your way to first
6. Do your best impression of Gandalf the Grey versus the Balrog
7. Show off the cheerleading routine you've been working on and flip the batboy instead of the bat
But if we're being totally honest, we really hope MLB players keep on flipping those bats in '16.