Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper reportedly ‘stood nose to nose’ with Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred over a heated clash over the league’s salary cap.
The confrontation took place last week between one of the biggest faces in the sport and the commissioner during a meeting between the Phillies and Manfred.
Harper was reportedly enraged, per ESPN, about the possibility of Manfred implementing a salary cab in MLB, which would limit how much players could be compensated.
“Get the f*** out of our clubhouse,’ Harper reportedly said during the heated incident.
Manfred conducts individual meetings with each of the 30 MLB franchises each season. The meeting in Philadelphia lasted more than an hour.
When exactly during the face-to-face Harper jabbed at Manfred is unclear, with the commissioner not expressly saying the words ‘salary cap’. The discussion of baseball’s economics reportedly led to Harper’s comment.
Phillies’ Bryce Harper reportedly ‘stood nose to nose’ with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred
The confrontation took place during a meeting between the commissioner and the Phillies
Harper reportedly was quiet for most of the meeting, sat in a chair and holding a bat. The two-time MVP spoke up about the salary cap saying there are players that ‘are not scared to lose 162 games’ should those restrictions be implemented.
Then came Harper’s explicit remark, with the 66-year-old MLB boss replying that he was ‘not going to get the f*** out of here’ due to how important he viewed voicing his concerns about the game to players.
Before the meeting got more intense, Harper’s teammate, Nick Castellanos, reportedly intervened and said, ‘I have more questions’, with the meeting continuing after the confrontation.
Later on, Manfred and Harper shook hands, though Harper has reportedly not answered phone calls from the commissioner in the day that followed.
‘It was pretty intense, definitely passionate,’ Castellanos told ESPN. ‘Both of ’em. The commissioner giving it back to Bryce and Bryce giving it back to the commissioner. That’s Harp. He’s been doing this since he was 15 years old. It’s just another day. I wasn’t surprised.’
MLB is the only major North American sports league without a salary cap, with multiple team owners pushing to create one at the end of the current collective-bargaining agreement, which runs through the 2026 season.
No salary cap leads to more varied spending between teams and in theory, could lead to less parity in the sport.
Both Harper and Manfred have not commented publicly on the situation.
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