Bryce Harper’s 1/1 Tier 1 Bat Knob Honors the Late Harambe

Bryce Harper’s 2024 Topps Tier One 1/1 bat knob pays homage to Harambe, the beloved gorilla who sadly was euthanized when a 3-year old boy crawled under a fence and into his enclosure at a Cincinnati zoo. The unfortunate incident garnered widespread attention both domestically and abroad.

Harambe became an internet sensation. He was the subject of everything from goofy memes to serious discussions of zoos and their standards they set for housing animals.

But in regards to baseball, this is just the latest iteration of players and their personalities coming out. Jackson Holliday had a 1/1 bat knob inscribed with ‘Fun Face’ in Topps’ Dynasty product, a homage to the Billy Ripken’s not-so-PG bat knob shown in his 1989 Fleer card.

While the Jackson Holliday’s knob is hand written, it looks as though Bryce Harper’s was professionally rendered. Just another example of the lengths these players will go to be creative an show their personalities. These kinds of things are good for baseball. It connects fans to players in ways that go outside the foul lines.

The funny thing is that the Harambe bat knob already has supporters clamoring for the card, which is evident by the comments on the Topps post on X.

The one thing we fans can hope for is that eventually players will start to try and out do one another, giving us collectors better and better pieces of cardboard to buy, sell, and trade.