Bryce Harper Sparks Dumb Baseball Beef, Dumber Twitter Spat

Bryce Harper stared at a homer for a little too long for the Braves' liking tonight. This got him plunked, and allowed the people running the teams' Twitter accounts to further cheapen the meaning of beef.

Here's Harper's homer, a laser to center off Julio Teheran. You can't really see him admiring it, but he doesn't make it to first until a few seconds after it lands.

Teheran then plunked Harper with the first fastball in his next plate appearance, prompting this tweet that the person behind @Braves probably thought was so clever.

@Nationals responded, because this is 2013, and the unwritten rule about conceding a base by throwing a ball at people who like admiring their homers has gotten an addendum directing social media coordinators to deepen the stupid:

Can someone please take Twitter away from every baseball team but the Rays? Or just give it to a rapper like the Astros did?

Photo: Alex Brandon/Associated Press