For years, Atlanta Braves legend Chipper Jones tormented the Mets and their fans. Not only did he talk trash about Mets fans going back to rooting for the Yankees after they were eliminated (which was pretty cold-blooded), but Jones put some of his best numbers up against the Braves' division rival, and boy did New York get tired of "Laaarrrrrryyy" getting the best of them. Now, it appears as though Ronald Acuña Jr. may be creating his own similar lore with the equally hated (if not more) Phillies.
Acuña Jr. has long rankled opposing fanbases both because of his performance as well as his tendency to thoroughly enjoy the torment he dishes out and bask in it. During this series against the Phillies, what was a pretty tame home run celebration by his standards drew the ire of Zack Wheeler and Philly fans alike.
Well, Acuña Jr.'s encore on Sunday after a huge game-tying home run probably didn't make him any Phillies friends, but it injected some much-needed life into what should be a much bigger rivalry than it is most of the time.
Ronald Acuña Junior gave himself a curtain call at CBP after he tied up the game with a big 3 run HR and the eighth inning. He has really angered Phillies fans in this series the way he pimps his home runs. Really tough loss for the Phillies. They have lost seven of nine games to…
— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) September 6, 2026
Ronald Acuña Jr. and other players like him make rivalries better for everyone...to a point
Now, before the unwritten-rules police come for me, a couple of notes. First, you will find an unreceptive audience here for your opinion that all baseball players should only keep their heads down and not celebrate anything. If you want that, just listen to the radio broadcast and leave the rest of us who experience joy in their lives alone. Also, of course, there is a limit to everything. Giving a home run a long look and doing the bird-flapping celebration is one thing, but doing backflips around the bases and trying to pants the infielders as you do is another entirely.
At the end of the day, real rivalries have main characters. Braves fans have long hated Bryce Harper (a guy who too has done his fair share of taunting other teams in his day), Yankees fans despise David Ortiz (and others), and the aforementioned Chipper example with the Mets has been well documented. Rooting against a guy just because of the uniform they wear is fine, but the real investment comes when there is a star-level player that has played a meaningful role that embraces the hate from opposing fans.
Will some players and some fans take it too far sometimes? Of course there will be. However, just because a guy came up huge and celebrated it a bit is far from crossing any real line. Acuña Jr. knows that he is hated in Philadelphia (and New York and Miami and the José Ureña) and he embraces it. With a big smile on his face, he eggs the boos on and gives himself a curtain call to keep the taunts raining down. If you are a Phillies fan, your blood boiled. If you are a Braves fan, you were ready to run through a wall. Wherever on the spectrum you are, Acuña Jr. makes you care when he is on the field.
We all should want that in baseball or any sport. Team biases can only take things so far. It is the personal stories and personal investments that last the longest and create generational fans. Some traditionalists don't want to see any trash talk unless it is coming out of their mouths, and others just want everyone to get along and try their best. Pissing off both ends of that spectrum feels like where baseball really should want to be, because what the sport needs is just more people to care and for those that do to be emotionally invested even more. In the case of Acuña Jr., mission accomplished.
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