The Atlanta Braves are a game away from being eliminated for a second-straight year by the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLDS, but that’s somehow not the focus around the clubhouse right now.
No, it has much more to do with a harmless piece of fun sparking an elite baseball player to do something he normally does in the postseason, and a discussion on journalistic ethics that should be blatantly obvious.
In what’s clearly the second-dumbest MLB playoffs controversy going on right now (first place goes to you, Mattress Mack), the baseball world is now fixated on Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia trolling Phillies right fielder Bryce Harper in the Atlanta clubhouse after the Braves won Game 2 of the NLDS.
Well, it’s a bit more what happened after that, as Harper used Arcia’s light ribbing with fellow teammates as bulletin board material to smack a three-run homer out of Citizens Bank Park en route to a Game 3 Phillies victory.
Like many great athletes before him, Harper used a perceived slight, even one as innocuous as Arcia saying “ha-ha, atta-boy Harper” to his fellow Braves after Harper’s base-running error gave Atlanta the last out needed to win Game 2 at Truist Park.
https://t.co/ylaPv6ScEM pic.twitter.com/wzgVTRKoQY
— Jake Mintz (@Jake_Mintz) October 10, 2023
The reporting above by Fox Sports’ Jake Mintz is typical sports journalism done in the postseason of a professional sport. He overheard someone say something newsworthy in a locker room filled with reporters, and he shared it. Quite frankly, it was a nice catch by Mintz that added flavor to his game story.
Even if Arcia didn’t realize he was being recorded, everything he said was fair game for a reporter to report on. There are legitimate television cameras rolling in MLB clubhouses after postseason wins. How is this surprising?
After all, Arcia said absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for what you’d expect a winning team to say about a rival after that rival made a mistake to lose a game, and Mintz just got within earshot to share the comment.
Arcia was just having justified fun, and Mintz shared what he heard.
Well, since Harper very clearly heard about Arcia’s joking and let him know about it on that dramatic homer, the Braves are not happy it got reported in the first place.
Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud alleged that Mintz shared the comment off the record and violated some sort of sacred rule about reporting what’s said in a clubhouse when it’s not said directly to a reporter.
He likens the clubhouse to a “sanctuary.” We apologize if your eyes have rolled so hard that they’ve started spinning like an out-of-control windmill.
Travis d'Arnaud on the Bryce Harper-Orlando Arcia situation. It seems the #Braves believe a reporter took a quote off record.
"We feel like (the clubhouse) is a sanctuary, we come to work everyday and try to have fun and when things get out… it's not a good feeling." pic.twitter.com/08EvC6zNsP
— Victor Prieto (@victorprieto_11) October 12, 2023
A baseball clubhouse during the MLB Playoffs is about as sacred as a Wendy’s dining room at the lunch rush.
If you overhear Fran from church smack-talking the preacher’s sermon to Claudia and Betsy Lee while munching down on a Nacho Loaded Cheeseburger, you’re in your legal right to tell someone else you heard it.
Mintz was not interviewing a city councilperson off-the-record for an ordinance vote, nor was he in Arcia’s backyard during a private function with his Braves teammates. He was in an open locker room after a professional sports victory, one with tons of other reporters who have legal and ethical fair game to report on whatever they might hear on the job.
There is no difference in Mintz reporting on Arcia’s very light jab at Harper than there is the Fox Sports camera crew picking up on Justin Verlander’s expletive-laden victory speech to his Houston Astros teammates before popping the bottles for the team’s ALDS win.
A locker room is not a confessional booth. It’s a place where players go before and after games and practice, and there are set times where media is allowed to interact with players. Mintz was present for one of those times. Even if Arcia’s comments weren’t told directly to Mintz, he had more than a right to report on them being said.
It doesn’t matter if Harper got wind of these comments or not; it’s not Mintz’s fault that Braves manager Brian Snitker didn’t pull starting pitcher Bryce Elder in time for Harper’s at-bat.
This anecdote from This is Football host Kevin Clark spells out just how “sacred” the clubhouse is during media availability.
After the 2013 AFC title game, my first year on the NFL beat, Terrell Suggs was yelling the wildest stuff imaginable about the Patriots in the tunnel in Foxboro. Every single reporter reported it because it was news and the media was allowed there. What’s the debate exactly? https://t.co/fhZQa4iinT
— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) October 12, 2023
As for Harper? He’s got a right to make a mountain out of a molehill just as any professional athlete, just as Arcia is perfectly reasonable in mildly trolling a rival for an on-field mistake and Mintz is in reporting that Arcia did so when he overheard it in the Braves locker room.
This is the nothingburger of the postseason so far, one that has the Braves all in a tizzy when they should be focusing on getting back to Truist Park for Game 5 and making Harper work for another World Series berth on the road.
Nobody did anything wrong, and that’s how it should be.
