Bryce Harper can’t be a free agent for three-plus years, but there’s already speculation – or maybe it’s just wild fan hope – that he’s destined to one day be a Yankee.
The Nationals’ star clearly has heard that chatter, too, because he had all the right answers to questions about his future Tuesday night before he played his first-ever game at the Stadium.
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Right for the Nationals, anyway.
“I love the Nationals,” Harper said a few hours before he went 2-for-4, including a homer off Masahiro Tanaka, in Washington’s 6-1 loss to the Yanks. “I enjoy the Nationals organization. I enjoy the fans that support me in right field every single day. I love running out there, seeing them out there.
“Mr. Ted Lerner (the Nats’ owner), he gave me the opportunity to play in the big leagues. It’s just a fun time….DC is such a great place to play. It’s a monumental town.
“We’re going to go about our business, try to win a World Series, just like every other team. If I can bring that back to DC, bring that back to the city, that’s what I want to do. I’ve said it a long, long time – it’s something I want to do.”
Harper, who once famously told Sports Illustrated that he dreamed of playing in pinstripes, is eligible to be a free agent after the 2018 season. If he continues blossoming – he’s batting .330 with a .465 on-base percentage and 47 RBI – he’ll likely be in line for a record-breaking free agent contract. And he’ll only have just turned 26 that October.
It’s impossible to tell now whether he’ll be available for the Yankees to pursue. But it is apparent that Harper is enamored of the Yankees, starting from his childhood. Not that he campaigned Tuesday to be courted by them, but he does have some things in common with Yankee fans – he loves some of the same past Yankee stars they do.
Harper even tweeted a photo from his Instagram account Tuesday afternoon that showed him standing contemplatively in front of Mickey Mantle’s retired No. 7 in Monument Park. The comment with the Tweet read: “The Mick!”
Harper said he was attracted to the Yankees as a kid because of “the pinstripes, everything about them. It’s the New York Yankees. It’s something. I love Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams, The Mick, of course, watching ’61*’ and ESPN Classic and things like that. Babe Ruth was always a guy who hit the ball far.”
Growing up in Las Vegas, Harper watched the Cubs and Braves on their cable superstations in addition to the Yankees, but the Yanks perhaps had greater appeal. “I always enjoyed the pinstripes, (Derek) Jeter and things like that,” Harper said.
That’s why Harper seemed genuinely excited about playing at the Stadium. And it was mostly a nice evening in the Bronx for Harper, despite the loss.
There was one curious play, however. He tried to bunt for a hit on a 1-2 pitch leading off the seventh inning, but fouled it off for strike three.
Nats’ manager Matt Williams didn’t seem to like the play, responding to a question about it by saying, “We’ll save that one for another day.”
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Here’s Harper’s take: “Two strikes, just trying to get on base right there. He threw a good pitch to bunt, actually. I just got under it and fouled it back. If I lay it down perfect – actually, I don’t even have to lay it down perfect. If I lay it down the third base line, I’m on first with Zim (Ryan Zimmerman) coming up. I’ve bunted with two strikes before. Maybe not at the big-league level, but I’ve done it before. It was in my head the whole time.
“I went with my gut and it didn’t work.”
The only other time he’s been on the field at the Stadium was when he came to work out in front of Yankee scouts “when I was about 14 years old,” he said.
“I was at the new one (Stadium), I know that, because A.J. Burnett was playing catch in right field for rehab,” Harper added. “I can remember that – he was all tatted up.
“When I was younger, I went to the old one. I was probably about 12. I actually watched Wanger (Chien-Ming Wang, later his teammate in Washington) pitch against Cleveland.”
During that workout for the Yankees, Harper said he was “probably trying to launch, because I was 14 years old, just trying to hit the ball as far as I could at that age, just trying to enjoy it as much as I could, taking everything in.”
He’s got the same idea about this abbreviated two-game series at the Stadium: “That’s what I’m going to try to do, take it all in, have some fun.”
