Part I: The Harper Hype

Bryce Harper, center, of the College of Southern Nevada waits to bat during a game against the College of Southern Idaho on Thursday May 13, 2010. (Marlene Karas)

For Nationals, a Brighter Horizon

By Adam KilgoreTuesday, August 17, 2010

On Monday afternoon, the third-floor offices at Nationals Park buzzed with an upbeat atmosphere. Back in early June, on the day they drafted Bryce Harper first overall and the day before Stephen Strasburg became a

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major leaguer, the men in charge of the Washington Nationals believed they could orchestrate the team’s most impressive draft since baseball returned to Washington. More than two months later, the final steps had come into view.

There was still work to be done, and it would not end until seconds from the midnight Monday deadline. Only then did the Nationals finally agree to a deal with Harper and agent Scott Boras—a major league contract. The Nationals, for the second straight season, had drafted a slam-dunk first overall choice and signed a player with a mountain of hype behind him.

“With a full minute, Mike [Rizzo] and I thought we were not going to have a deal,” Nationals President Stan Kasten said. The deal was worth $9.9 million over five years with a signing bonus of $6.25 million, which matched the highest signing bonus a position player has ever received.

In Harper, a 17-year-old outfielder and power-hitting prodigy, the Nationals could have an offensive answer to Strasburg, a generational talent reliant on sheer power who could become one of the forces that lifts the franchise to prominence.

The Nationals may have felt confident in their chances to sign Harper, but they weren’t sure until the ink was on the paper and the deal had been called in to Major League Baseball’s New York offices. With an hour before midnight, they still wondered if maybe Harper wouldn’t sign. “No idea,” one high-ranking team source said.

Harper gained notice in scouting circles when he launched a 502-foot home run with a wooden bat at a high school showcase as a freshman. He gained widespread fame when he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated—anointed as “Baseball’s Chosen One”—at 16. He chose Boras as his “advisor,” earned his G.E.D. in order to skip his final two years of high school and dominated older competition in his only junior college season at the College of Southern Nevada. During the regular season at CSN, Harper hit .442 with a .986 slugging percentage and a .524 on-base percentage and hit 29 home runs. The old school record, achieved with a metal bat, was 12.

“I didn’t think there was any way someone would hit 15, 20 home runs with a wood bat,” said CSN teammate Tyler Hanks, a Nationals draft choice now pitching for their Gulf Coast League affiliate.

When the Nationals drafted Harper, they declared he would turn from a catcher to an outfielder in order to hasten his ascension to the major leagues. Harper could reach the majors by the end of the 2012 season. At that point he would be 19, an age at which Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Justin Upton —three other teen-aged top picks—were playing in the majors.

Since Harper has not played organized baseball since his college season ended in June, he would likely begin his professional career in the lower ranks of the Nationals’ minor leagues. The competition at first, like the pitching he faced in junior college, may or may not test him.

“He’d dominate,” Hanks said. “He’d absolutely dominate.”Harper’s biggest challenge may be assimilating into his first teams amidst largely anonymous, potentially

skeptical teammates. His fame and riches will instantly set him apart. Nationals executives and former teammates have consistently defender’s Harper’s character, but his brash reputation has made some disenchanted.

Players on the Nationals’ Gulf Coast team have taken to wearily asking Hanks about Harper. “They’re like, ‘I hear he’s a [jerk],’ “ Hanks said. But Hanks believes Harper has proven his character in a difficult setting.

Opposing players constantly heckled Harper; one team’s players intentionally overthrew one another during warm-ups, trying to hit Harper with long-tosses. “Nobody could have done a better job,” Hanks said.

Harper would be the crown jewel to a draft class the Nationals believe to chocked with potential impact players. Before Harper had finalized anything, the Nationals finished off three signings for well over the price recommend by Major League Baseball that represented a haul even without one of the most highly touted amateur players ever.

The Nationals hope to never pick first overall again. But they know how lucky they are to have lost 205 games combined in two seasons that allowed them to pick Harper and Strasburg in consecutive drafts.

“It’s never happened before,” Rizzo said.The saga of making Harper a National began June 7, when they drafted Harper out of the College of

Southern Nevada. Rizzo initially hoped the Nationals could sign Harper soon; Kasten bet him $1 that would never happen. When talks did not progress immediately following the draft, the Rizzo realized the negotiation would linger until close to the deadline.

Monday night, the Nationals and Boras began building the framework of a deal by 11, early enough, they thought, to avoid a last-second showdown. “And yet,” Kasten said, “there we found ourselves again.”

But the Nationals knew how badly they wanted Harper. Kline, in his first year as scouting director, had watched him play since Harper was 15. Harper reminded Clark of Jason Heyward, the uber-prospect he had scouted, drafted and signed as the scouting director for the Atlanta Braves. “Don’t ask me which one I would take,” Clark said.

So, as the seconds ticked down, the Nationals and Boras pushed aside small differences. They had come far enough that both sides knew leaving a deal on the table would be absurd.

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“You go down to the last second until somebody blinks and you make your last-ditch effort,” Rizzo said. “Once the smoke cleared, we had common ground to get a deal done.”

And when, exactly, did the smoke clear?“We don’t know,” Kasten said. “It’s not an exaggeration. I can’t explain it or brag about it. But it was inside

the last minute.”By the end of the night, including Harper’s pact, the Nationals had signed four players in a day. And now,

those four players will join forces with Strasburg, and the Nationals future looks brighter now than it did the day before.

They hope they never have sign a first overall choice again.

Harper takes his hacks in D.C.

By Adam KilgoreFriday, August 27, 2010

On Thursday morning, before he scalded a ball into the third deck at Nationals Park and before his grand introduction to Washington, Bryce Harper introduced himself to the city where the Washington Nationals believe he will become a star, their “cornerstone.”

Harper went for a jog, but in the style one might expect only of a carefree 17-year-old who smears eye black on his face like war paint and wears a jet-black suit with a hot-pink tie to his first professional news conference.

As part of his morning run, Harper climbed shirtless up the steps of the U.S. Capitol, a headband wrapped around his forehead, just below the spiky faux-hawk. He pumped his arms like Rocky. When he returned to his hotel room, he gave his father a report.

“He said, ‘Everybody was looking at me like I was crazy,’” Ron Harper said later. “I said, ‘Well, Bryce . . .’”

In his first trip to Washington and first day spent with the Nationals, Harper made clear both why the Nationals selected him first overall and his nonchalant comfort with the attention heaped upon him for it. In the afternoon, he clobbered 12 home runs during batting practice, one in the top deck, where only bombs by Adam Dunn have ventured, and several into the bullpen in left center field. The first word Nationals hitting coach Rick Eckstein said when asked about the display: “Wow.”

“It felt like home,” Harper said. “I’m like a little kid in a candy store.” In the evening, Harper sat at a dais between General Manager Mike Rizzo—the man who called him “a cornerstone of the organization on and off the field”—and agent Scott Boras, his representative. MASN made it the centerpiece of its pregame show, replete with an emcee.

Ryan Zimmerman—“the face of the franchise,” Rizzo said—entered the room for a moment to cover Harper’s shoulders with a No. 34 Nationals uniform. “He hands out the jerseys,” Rizzo said.

“It’s going in my next contract,” Zimmerman said.Harper slapped on a red hat with a white curly “W” and sat before a room full of reporters, his family and

members of the Nationals ownership group. Quickly, Harper introduced a new phrase to the franchise’s lexicon. He explained that during batting practice earlier he had hit several “oppo boppos” —opposite field home runs.

In the three months since Harper played his last junior college game (from which he was ejected), he took batting practice on his own and lifted weights with the Las Vegas High School football team. Harper, a self-described “baseball rat” who constantly traveled to tournaments as a kid, had never gone so long without playing a baseball game. “It was a horrible break,” he said.

In roughly two weeks, Harper will report to the Florida Instructional League with several other high draft choices for the Nationals, Rizzo said. The Nationals may send Harper to the Arizona Fall League afterward, but they have yet to set a definite plan.

The real question remains: When will Harper don a Nationals jersey for real?“I have no idea right now,” Harper said. “I’m just trying to get out there and show what I can do. I’ll let the

higher power take care of that.

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“But I set high standards for myself. I think I should be perfect in every aspect of the game. I love playing. I live for baseball.”

During the day, Harper chatted with St. Louis Cardinals all-star first baseman Albert Pujols, which apparently was no big thing.

“I’ve known Albert for a while,” Harper said. He met Dunn, which was awesome. “He’s hilarious,” Harper said. “He might be one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met.” He still has never spoken with Stephen Strasburg.

All Nationals employees wore suits to the park. (”Nothing better than dressing up for a 17-year-old,” one of them said.) Harper made his first appearance during batting practice, when he jolted balls like any big leaguer, only farther.

“He showed the ability to hit powerful line drives to the opposite field and to the pull side,” Eckstein said. “He really showed a very short path to the ball, a very quick bat through the zone. An advanced approach for his age, definitely. Some of the things he was talking about hitting-wise, his feel for what he as trying to do, he was really advanced for his age.”

Harper appeared just as comfortable at the podium as in the batter’s box.About his haircut, he explained, “I actually just got that. My sister is a beautician, so she tries different

things on me. The ladies like it, so . . .”Harper said his first big purchase would be to fix the dent in his 2000 Toyota Tacoma, which has 120,000

miles on it. A reporter asked if he would buy a new truck. “Why?” Harper said. “It’s awesome.”“I’ve had a lot of people around me my whole life,” Harper said. “I’m really used to it now. I’ve had a lot of

media, a lot of little kids looking up to me. That’s the biggest, trying to teach the little guys how to go out there and have fun. Just go out there and play ball.”

That will come. For now, the Nationals will wait for him to grow, his first impression enough for them to believe it will be worth it.

“He was pretty impressive,” Eckstein said. “Wasn’t he?”

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