Bregman's post is good for baseball, shouldn't have been deleted

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HOUSTON — Bat flips are great, but some Instagram fun is not. 

Well, that doesn’t make sense. 

Baseball is still caught in between. Let the kids play. And let the kids trash talk, too. 

An Instagram post showing the homers you’ve hit off a team’s starting pitcher — like the one Alex Bregman posted of Nate Eovaldi on Monday — is nothing more than harmless fun. It’s enjoyable for fans and a conversation starter for fans and the media alike.

Yet, as people noticed and talked about the video Monday, Bregman took it down. That was Bregman’s choice, not a directive from the Astros, sources said.

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“He was kind of embarrassed,” one person said.

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He shouldn’t have been. And the Sox should make their own Instagram videos, if they want. 

Sports are theater. Don't limit the drama without good cause.

“And we have a sport full of great personalities and there's a fine line,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “Is it disrespectful? No. If it crosses a line, if you have to question whether it crosses the line it probably does. And so I don't look any further into that.

"We want guys to have their personalities, have their fun. Then go out and back it up. If you're going to put yourself out there you've got to back it up a little bit. But this is all in fun banter and competition. And we're playing a baseball game against a really good team in front of millions and millions of people. Let your personality shine a little bit.”

Cora, Hinch’s former bench coach, agreed.

“The guy that breaks the unwritten rules of baseball is Francisco Lindor,” Cora said. “He’s smiling, he’s throwing the bat and everybody’s like, ‘Oh, he’s playing with joy. Back in the day it was like, ‘Oh no, you can’t do that.’

“Now it’s Instagram and Twitter, you know? I mean he has a fan base. Sometimes you talk to these guys, you talk to some of the young kids, it’s a brand. Like, hey man, he got more followers today.”

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Bregman, the Astros third baseman, and Cora are incredibly close. The former called it a “friendship that will never be broken” following their year together with the Astros in 2017. 

Cora joked Monday that he hadn’t heard about what Bregman did, just as he hadn’t heard about what Aaron Judge did after Game 2 of the ALDS, when the Yankees slugger left Fenway Park with a speaker playing “New York, New York.” Of course, Cora knows.

“People are paying attention, you know?” Cora said. “Like the Judge thing was in every sports show, which is cool, I think. Like, we need more people to talk about the game.”

As a manager, Cora said that he doesn’t get wrapped up in what amounts to trash talk. (Although Cora himself took a press conference shot at Yanks pitcher Luis Severino, which Cora later apologized for.)

“It's always good that people talk about the game,” Cora continued on Monday in Houston. “And if that's the reason they're talking about it, so be it."

Blake Swihart is Bregman’s best friend. During the ALDS, Bregman noted in a television interview that the Astros deserved to be in primetime, a slot occupied by the Sox and Yankees. When the Sox advanced to the ALCS, Swihart posted a team picture on Instagram with the hashtag #primetime

“He texts me and he goes, ‘Nice hashtag,’” Swihart said. “It’s having fun. I don’t think anyone’s really mad or pissed off about it. Like I said, he has confidence. He’s just trying to pump people up to ‘em. And try to pump up fans, everybody.

“I don’t think anybody was really mad about it or anything. A bunch of guys post stuff probably a lot worse than that."

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