Deion Sanders fever invades MLB, but not for his former team

You can’t get away from Deion Sanders.

As he says, “I ain’t hard to find.” Images of — and references to — the CU Buffs’ head coach and his program are omnipresent these days. Even after two recent losses, his Buffs remain the boldest item in the American sports zeitgeist.

Wednesday, it hit the Major League Baseball playoffs, where multiple Philadelphia Phillies players — including Bryce Harper — were spotted wearing Sanders-themed items as they strode into Citizens Bank Park for Game 3 of the National League Division Series.

They done messed around pic.twitter.com/MivRO0RX9A

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) October 11, 2023

Of course, wearing Coach Prime-themed gear is an interesting choice given that their opponent is the Atlanta Braves. In Sanders’ two-sport salad days of the 1990s, he played in a World Series for Atlanta, batting .533 as the Braves fell to the Toronto Blue Jays, four games to two, in the 1992 Fall Classic.

Harper and the Phillies went to Atlanta and stole a game from the team with MLB’s best record, shutting out the Braves’ record-setting offense, 3-0 on Saturday. Atlanta rebounded with a come-from-behind, 5-4 win on Monday night — a game capped by center fielder Michael Harris II making the kind of running, acrobatic, game-wining catch that Sanders had during his MLB career.

Sanders belongs to the Braves’ history. The “Tomahawk Chop” — the team’s controversial fan gesture — came to Atlanta because of Sanders himself. He spurred fans to do that because he played at Florida State, where the “Chop” became popular in the 1980s.

So, after stealing a Game 1 win, now the Phillies are stealing a bit of Braves history, too — although they’re only leaning into the tsunami of Deion Sanders Fever that continues to sweep the sports landscape.

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