The Kid's Alright

With my “government Friday” winding down and not much chance of a blog post tomorrow, there’s simply too many things to write about…the Redskins (RG3, Kirk Cousins, etc.), the Clippers-Grizzlies game from last night, the Heat at MSG tonight, my newfound commitment to get to the office before 8am, and on and on and on…how about we stick with Bryce Harper?

The kid.

In 4 games since being called up to the majors, Harper has definitely caught a lot of people’s attention. 1st, there’s his ability. It’s a small sample size, but in 4 games he’s batting 0.385 with 3 doubles, and he’s shown he has a Howitzer for an arm to boot. His swing seems to be effortless and completely violent at the same time somehow. It’s the kind of swing that makes it easy to misjudge the ball off of his bat when watching on TV. What look like nice line drives are suddenly careening off outfield walls once the behind-the-backstop camera view is switched to. And while he may be the type of guy that draws the ire of opponents now and again (his blatant look-at-me helmit flip on his way to 2nd base following a double to the gap a couple nights ago, his ridiculous haircut and eyeblack, and his brash personality will no doubt get some sweet chin music thrown his way sometime in the not so distant future), he also seems to be the type of guy that is going to do everything 100 miles per hour all the time. Ruffling people’s feathers is expected with Harper, but I doubt it will be for dogging it on his was to 1st after a groundout or anything hustle-related. He appears to be a balls-to-the-wall kind of player. And behind that ability and machismo might even be a cool dude in his own way. YouTube was blowing up the other day with this clip of Harper taking a couple of swings in a slow-pitch softball game at the National Mall in DC.

Apparently Harper was just doing the tourist thing in the nation’s capital, was walking by the game, and decided to pick up a bat for a minute or 2 in what looked like a local beer league game. That doesn’t seem like something a lot of “modern” athletes would do in an era that’s all about protecting one’s brand. (Think back to a couple of summers ago when there was that whole “videogate” episode over whether LeBron either did or didn’t have Nike pull the grainy footage of Jordan Crawford dunking on King James in a summer pick-up game.) So yea, Harper may rub some people the wrong way early on in his career, but it’s cool to see a 19 year old kid actually be 19 sometimes. And 19 year old kids, even ones with superhuman talents, have bad haircuts, can be loudmouths, and can get themselves into trouble from time to time…and they also play hard and don’t worry about getting struck out by some pudgy weekend warrior in a park either. Like I said, it’s a small sample size, but despite his foibles it’s hard not to like Harper’s swagger, game, and charm. Whether he becomes a superstar or not, the Nationals need a guy like Harper. The Nats are full of do-gooder, yessir-nossir types. Just look at their other phenom, Stephen Strasburg. When he’s not on the field, Strasburg appears to be perfectly content being completley ignored. The limelight is not for him. Harper, on the other hand, seems to embrace it. The coming weeks, months, and years will tell us whether he’s worth all the hype or not, but 1 thing seems certain: the Bryce Harper era is going to be fun.