Bryce Harper's mission to make baseball fun again

— -- He leads the league in homers. He leads the league in stop-what-you're-doing-and-turn-on-SportsCenter moments. And, of course, he leads the league in hair. But in other news, Bryce Harper has a war to fight.

The culture war.

He might not look the part. But baseball's most magnetic player is the Gen. George S. Patton of the baseball culture war. He sees what the men around him don't. He says what the men around him won't. So he is willing to fight to save the world. His world. The beautiful world of baseball. And amazingly, the fight started with a cap.

"MAKE BASEBALL FUN AGAIN." Four words, stitched in red onto a white trucker's cap, sitting atop Harper's head as he addressed the media after homering on Opening Day. Let the fun begin. Let the culture war begin.

He was "just messing around," he says now. Just messing with the media. And you'll be shocked to learn that three weeks later, MAKE BASEBALL FUN AGAIN caps and T-shirts are eminently available for purchase all over the internet, not to mention at the Washington Nationals' team store.

But here's the important part: When Harper wriggled that cap onto his head that day, it had nothing to do with marketing. He was a man with a message. And he's going to make sure we all hear that message for, like, the next two decades.

"I love this game more than anything in the entire world," he says. "But ..."

But? Was that a "but?" It sure was. But ... the game has to change. And -- you need to know this, you need to be ready for this -- Bryce Harper is volunteering to drive that change.

When he told ESPN The Magazine this winter that "baseball is tired ... because you can't express yourself," he knew exactly what he was doing. Knew exactly what he was saying. Knew exactly why he was saying it.