Bat flipping pros and cons starring Bercules and Yasiel Puig

If you’re looking to book a bat-flipping pro for your daughter’s bat mitzvah, or as a ringer at your next corporate softball shindig, we’ve got just the man for you.

Massachusetts-based personal trainer Johnny Burke, aka Bercules, has elevated the art of bat flipping to a place few — outside the community of bo staff martial artists — could have ever imagined.

A post shared by Bercules88 (@bercules88) on Jul 20, 2014 at 10:33pm PDT

Burke, who also goes by the nickname Batman, is no one-trick pony. He can flip, flick and float the bat about his body every which way but loose.

One of the cons to bat flipping, to which Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig can attest, is that opposing pitchers don’t take kindly to the practice as a celebratory gesture. That didn’t stop Puig from inviting New Yorkers to try some flips of their own to mark personal victories. The results, as you will see, occasionally bordered on public nuisance.