The first time I read anything about Bryce Harper, the immediate reaction was one of a young brat still wet behind the ears who needed his mouth washed out with soap.
He was a teenage sensation out of Las Vegas, a rising high school junior about to be college freshman, the subject of a story titled “The Chosen One,” and gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated four months before his 17th birthday. Yeesh, if that didn’t scream “entitlement,” what did?
In that story, with little or no restraint offered by those around him, Harper talked about his baseball dreams. Not just those of making it to the major leagues mind you, like thousands of others his age. No sir, none of that mundane stuff. We’re talking fast track to pinstripes, Hall of Fame and, hold your breath, greatest player ever.
I was more than a little taken back by such boldness, and said as much during a conversation with Mike Pazik, former major league pitcher, coach and scout and a friend from his days on the Orioles’ minor league staff.
“He’s the real deal — and would probably go No. 1 this year if he was eligible,” Pazik said without hesitation, quickly defusing my accelerated temperature with a dose of reality.
Suffice it to say I paid close attention while Harper skipped a year of school, got a GED, competed for a year at the junior college level and became the No. 1 pick in the country the next year (two spots before the Orioles took Manny Machado), spent one full year in the minor leagues and made it to the majors at age 19 (as predicted).
He still carries some of the bravado he showed as that wet-behind-the-ears teenager, and watching from a relatively close distance, it’s obvious to old diehards (ahem!) that it has rubbed off on his teammates. Harper is, as Pazik told me years ago, “the real deal.” He is a generational talent who lives for moments like the eighth inning of Game 5 of the National League Championship Series when, with the Padres leading 3-2, he hit an opposite-field, two-run homer that sent the Phillies to the World Series.
With only 87 wins, the Phillies were the last team to qualify for postseason play. It took a six-run rally in the ninth inning of the first game in the wild-card round to jump-start this unlikely run, but from that point they have played with the same kind of swagger that Harper brings to the party. And it’s obvious his teammates are all-in.
Harper made it to the bigs at age 19, as he predicted, and the Hall of Fame is certainly within reach, and he’s got a chance of being recognized as the best of his era, but that “all-time” ranking? There are more than a few plaques in Cooperstown to be conquered.
As for those pinstripes, the Phillies wear red.
Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com