It wasn’t Bruce Wayne, but Mark Harvey, better known as the “Baltimore Batman” struck again this past Sunday.
Those in attendance at M&T Bank Stadium Sunday night were treated to Harvey’s signature “lawnmower” move across the 20-yard line – the very same move he performed during his epic Orioles Opening Day appearance in April.
Harvey’s initial antics at Camden Yards gained him some national recognition. He was featured on the front page of Yahoo!, the “Idiot On The Field” series on Deadspin, and most notably has been featured now on two segments of The Ellen Degeneres Show.
Degeneres was made aware of Harvey’s antics because he said he “couldn’t find any Ellen underwear”, so he wore Batman underwear instead. When Degeneres heard of this, she made Harvey a cape with a picture of her face on it. That cape was flying through the brisk September air on Sunday as Harvey made his NFL debut.
During a segment on Tuesday’s episode of Ellen, Degeneres presented Harvey with a new cape promoting her tenth season of the show and his very own pair of matching Ellen underwear. “If you’re going to do it, you don’t want to be wearing last year’s styles,” she said.
Will the Baltimore Batman strike again? Only he knows. After a legal snafu got him off scott free from his first trot across a professional playing field, the Ravens have already said they’ll be prosecuting Harvey “to the fullest extend of the law”.
Harvey’s message is a good one, though many will question the manner in which he is going about his presentation. In the wake of a recent shooting at nearby Perry Hall high school as a result of bullying, his message aligns with Ravens’ running back Ray Rice’s public campaign to end bullying. Even though Harvey may be trying to gain the attention of Rice, don’t expect the pro bowl back to send out a message. Rice must stay loyal to his team and the NFL when it comes to player safety with fans running onto the field, no matter how comical it may be.
With limited venues remaining in Baltimore, Harvey may have to take his talents down I-95 to D.C. where he has a plethora of professional sports franchises to share the message he preaches on his Bigger Than Bullying website.
I spoke with a family member who works with Harvey and said before the game he took a week off of work in anticipation of his arrest, during which he’ll have plenty of time to decide if his marketing campaign is necessarily worth it.
As for the NFL, their next scheduled cause for promotion is their month-long breast cancer awareness campaign where players routinely don pink cleats, wristbands and gloves. For Harvey, he may switch up his approach since he already runs onto the field shirtless – or he may leave the job up to his sidekick Catwoman.
Whatever, wherever and whenever Harvey decides to do something again – if ever at all – it’s sure to be funny but we just can’t condone anyone interrupting sporting events.
Here is the video of Ellen talking about Harvey’s latest actions from Sunday night:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IODkGU6Nd8c[/youtube]
