PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Bryce Harper bristled at the blowback from his toothbrushing technique that he displayed over a sink inside a San Diego hotel bathroom.
Harper shared his morning routine — appropriately captioned, “Moring Y’all” — to more than 600,000 followers on TikTok and one part or his oral care stopped even his most diehard fans right in their shower shoes.
The Philadelphia Phillies slugger squeezed toothpaste straight from the tube into his mouth, rather than applying it first onto his toothbrush.
Next came the brushback pitch.
“Actually diabolical toothpaste application,” one TikTok follower wrote on the post.
Harper’s outrageous oral hygiene was trolled on the videoboard as a “fun fact” by the Padres, left fans “horrified,” per British tabloid The Daily Mail, and generally had social media followers — more than 2.7 million views on Jomboy Media alone — befuddled at his brushing.
“It kind of happens when you post a little bit, right?” Harper told Phillies Nation on Wednesday inside the visitors’ clubhouse at Petco Park. “But yeah, I’ve done it forever.”
Well, the American Dental Association saw the video and its advice to potential emulators is simple: please don’t.
“It is not suggested to do it that way,” said Ohio dentist Andrew Zucker, a consumer advisor for the association.
Zucker watched the video and thought Harper — more known for his brush with greatness as a two-time NL MVP — was kidding.
But no, Harper explained to the website, it’s just the way he’s always brushed his teeth.
“I don’t think there’s anything to be gained,” Zucker said on Thursday. “The only thing to be lost is just wasting a whole bunch of toothpaste.”
Zucker added: “Just put a little pea-sized bit of it on a toothbrush and that’s all you need.”
The Padres had some fun with Harper’s toothbrushing tip when he came to hit on Tuesday night. His fun biographical fact was listed as: “SQUIRTS TOOTHPASTE INTO HIS MOUTH INSTEAD OF ONTO A TOOTHBRUSH WHEN BRUSHING HIS TEETH.”
“I mean, it’s gone viral, so I’m happy about that,” Harper told Phillies Nation. “It always helps with my videos when it goes viral, so if that’s what makes it go viral, then I’ll take it.”
It’s also quite uncommon.
Zucker’s father is a dentist, his mother is a hygienist and he’s 45 years old and the only time he saw the squeeze technique was “my 3-year-old and it was because he was trying to eat it. But no, I’ve never seen an adult brush their teeth this way.”
Harper’s method has worked for him, and he’s flashed his pearly whites over 376 career home runs and eight All-Star appearances.
“If I help half a person a day, changing an ingredient or letting them know there are better quality products out there that they can use or that’ll make them feel better, then I won that day,” Harper said.
So what’s the harm in the tube-to-tongue technique?
“My only concern would be, you have a lot of germs in your mouth,” said dentist Maria Ryan, chief clinical officer at Colgate-Palmolive. “When you’re putting your mouth on the toothpaste tube, you get those germs on there. Sometimes people share toothpaste and things like that, so I worry about that a little bit.”
But here’s the positive takeaway, now that Harper can’t put the toothpaste TikTok back in the tube.
Bryce Harper, star slugger, the Phillie Phanatic’s best friend, and baseball hero to children of all ages, brushes his teeth. Perhaps there’s a fussy Phillies fan in footy pajamas who balks at the twice-daily ritual but might be more inclined to brush because Harper does it, as well.
“I was glad he was brushing his teeth,” Ryan said. “I see he’s gotten a lot of views. It’s good he’s telling people you need to brush your teeth, which is very important for preventing cavities and gum disease.
“But it’s a unique way of doing it, for sure. So, I probably wouldn’t do it that way or instruct my patients to do it that way.”
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