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Jeff Passan, ESPN
PHILADELPHIA — Inside Bryce Harper's basement on a current Saturday morning, his son needed dad to look at his Hot Wheels races, and his daughter was hungry and wanted a bagel, and the newborn had simply unleashed a volcanic spit-up on him for the second time in 5 minutes, and amid the chaos, the calls for his consideration, the tugs in each path, Harper exuded calm. Considering the setting in which Harper plies his commerce — 40,000 folks bleating, praying and exhorting him to hold the Philadelphia Phillies again to Major League Baseball's mountaintop — the smaller viewers posed no downside.
Harper swiped the regurgitation off his hoodie, snagged a plate filled with breakfast, cheered for the orange automotive with the racing stripe and, when these duties had been accomplished, sank into the sofa and educated his eyes on the TV broadcasting “College GameDay.” He's a die-hard school soccer fan — a emblem for Ohio State, the place his spouse, Kayla, performed soccer, adorned his sweatshirt — and its return, as a lot because the leaves altering colours, signaled to Harper a brand new season and the arrival of his favourite month.
“I love October,” Harper mentioned. It's soccer and Halloween and his birthday, sure, however they're all secondary to him getting one other crack at fulfilling his goal. That's how Harper sees it at the very least. Everything he's — somebody ripe to be chewed up and spit out by the machine that makes sports activities stars however as an alternative met the hype — prepares him for October, equips him with the mental and emotional and religious instruments to match the bodily capabilities that had been by no means in query.
All of it converges once more Saturday, when the Phillies host the New York Mets in Game 1 of the National League Division Series at Citizens Bank Park. It will mark Harper's fiftieth profession postseason sport, 30 of them coming the previous two seasons, when he has been the perfect playoff performer in the sport. First in hits, first in dwelling runs, first in runs, first in OPS. They're not simply numbers that replicate the Phillies' success. They are the engine for it.
“When opponents hear his name being called over the PA and they hear the walkup music and they see him walking to the plate, their heart starts fluttering,” Phillies leadoff hitter Kyle Schwarber mentioned. “We all laugh about it, right? But everyone always thinks that something cool's going to happen. We all think that because he's proven it.”
Harper's reverence in the baseball world has been hard-earned. He has lived an inimitable baseball life: a pre-social media movie star at 15 years previous who dropped out of highschool to play junior school baseball, proved worthy of going No. 1 total in the draft at 17 years previous, reached the foremost leagues at 19, gained an MVP at 22, did it once more at 28 and now, on the cusp of his thirty second birthday, is lacking just one factor from his Hall of Fame résumé.
The Phillies had been two video games from a World Series title in 2022. Their return engagement final season flamed out in the NL Championship Series in opposition to Arizona. Now they're loaded: the bats, the gloves, the starters, the bullpen — as well-rounded a crew as exists in this baseball panorama suffused with parity. And he's the one to whom his teammates flip for the massive hit, the massive second, as a result of he has proven he is worthy of it.
“He's actively looking for the situation. He wants it,” mentioned Trea Turner, his teammate with the Washington Nationals who adopted him in signing a $300 million-plus free agent take care of Philadelphia. “I think everybody wants to be the hero, but I think he's a notch above that in the sense that he desires it. And I don't think you can teach that. I've heard him say before that some people are scared to be great, and that's obviously not him. He wants to be great.”
In baseball, greatness is solid in the on a regular basis grind, and with a sport to be performed, daddy day care time wound to an finish. Harper's 5-year-old son, Krew, requested if he'd see Harper in the clubhouse after the sport, and Harper answered affirmatively, so long as the Phillies gained. His 3-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, accompanied Krew exterior to sit down on the brick ledge as Harper pulled his truck out of the storage and backed out of the driveway. They smiled and waved and despatched him off to a different day of labor, one other day nearer to October, to the moments he spends all the common season ready for.
“Your heart's beating, racing a little bit, and you've got the butterflies, and especially Game 1, man,” Harper mentioned. “You go into Game 1 in the NLCS or the NLDS, and you're sitting there, and the planes are flying over, and the anthem's going, and you're like, damn, dude. It feels like Opening Day again. And I think that's a cool thing, too. It's a clean slate.
“You have an excellent 12 months, you could have a nasty 12 months, you could have the worst 12 months of your profession — I could not care much less about what you probably did throughout the season. Does not matter. Because when you have an amazing 11 video games, then you are going to be remembered for that. You're not going to be remembered for the 12 months that you just had. You're not going to be remembered for anything. That's what you are going to be remembered for. Remembered ceaselessly.”
ON THE 15-MINUTE ride from Harper's suburban New Jersey home to the ballpark, he can't stop talking about Philadelphia. He has spent nearly as many years here (six) as he did in Washington (seven), and Harper remains as smitten with the city as ever. When he signed a 13-year, $330 million contract with the Phillies, Harper vowed not to be a carpetbagger. So he roots for the Birds and Sixers and Flyers. He wears cleats and headbands festooned with the Wawa logo. The only thing that would make him more Philly is naming a child “Jawn.” And as much as he wants a championship for himself, he regards it as a communal act, a giveback for the embrace fans bestow upon him.
“At the tip of the day, they wish to see us win,” Harper said. “And if we're profitable, they're profitable. They can sit there and go, screw you to Boston, screw you to New York, screw you to L.A. They have that demeanor. That's simply how they're. They can maintain it over their buddy's head in New York or Boston as a result of we beat 'em that week. You know the way sports activities are, man.
“That's the coolest thing about being here and being part of it, and you don't fully understand it until you're here. It takes a different mindset to play in this place. And I wanted to do it.”
This place turns into one thing else in October. The solar units and the air turns crisp, and all the destructive connotations of previous Philadelphia fandom — battery chucking and booing Santa — have developed right into a civilized model of mania. “October baseball here is a performance,” Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos mentioned.
There are sing-alongs. (“October is a crazy, crazy time here,” mentioned Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott, whose grand slam in the speedy aftermath of the entire stadium feting him together with his walkup music grew to become a signature moment of last postseason. It has turn out to be — and Philadelphians may scoff at this, but it surely's true — virtually healthful.
And but it is nonetheless a horror present for guests. The decibel ranges, whether or not the fixed din or peak insanity, are unmatched in baseball, although that actually occurred solely years after Harper's arrival.
The Phillies had booked six consecutive dropping seasons after they signed him. The turnaround wasn't speedy. They had been 81-81 in Harper's first season, did not make the playoffs in the pandemic-shortened 2020 marketing campaign and missed once more at 82-80 the following 12 months. Before the 2022 season, they signed Schwarber, and that September, the Eagles' dwelling opener on Monday evening aligned with a Phillies off day. A bunch, together with Harper and Schwarber, went to the sport and got here away impressed. This is what the Bank can sound like. This is power we have to arouse. They gained their first six postseason video games on the Bank in October 2022, they usually gained their first 5 final 12 months. This 12 months, their 54-27 file on the Bank was the perfect dwelling mark in MLB.
That's why Harper pulled into the parking zone earlier than that Saturday sport in September and could not wait to go to work.
“I love it. I get here, and it's so calming for me,” Harper mentioned. “There's nothing that irritates me. It's just baseball. I'm a Philadelphia Phillie. I love it. Every day.”
“Calming is not the word a normal person would use,” Stott mentioned. “But he knows this is home now, and this is where he is going to be. And I think that's just a calming presence, even though the surrounding noise and fans and cheers is not calm at all.”
“When those moments come in the postseason or late in the year, there's nothing like it,” Harper mentioned. “I feel like there's times where it's in slow motion and I feel like the — I don't know. It's hard to explain because I've been playing baseball for a long time, and I've had those moments since I was 10, 11, 12 years old of slowing the game down.
“After 23, 24 years of aggressive baseball, since I used to be 7 years previous, I nonetheless love each a part of the competitiveness.”
HARPER IS NOT exaggerating. His formative years were spent in youth travel baseball, where he traversed the country on weekends as a baseball mercenary for different elite teams. An enormous child, already 6-foot-1 and 170 pounds at 12, Harper unleashed a fastball that touched 80 mph and a swing that crushed home runs. Baby fat covered Harper's face in the same way his beard does now, both ringing a mischievous grin he looses around teammates.
In 2005, Harper joined a team from Colorado at the Triple Crown World Series in Steamboat Springs. In the gold medal game, he pitched the final inning with the crowd “screaming and yelling and saying issues to a 12-year-old child that you just in all probability should not say.” This was three years before he graced the cover of Sports Illustrated, and they still knew who he was.
“So I ended up getting the outs,” Harper said. “We win the sport, and I got here off the sphere, and I used to be bawling, crying as a result of the state of affairs was simply so intense. I wasn't mad. I wasn't joyful. I wasn't upset. It was only a pure adrenaline rush of emotion. And I beloved it. I beloved all these alternatives. I beloved all these moments. I beloved the sensation of that.”
The Bryce Harper who finds calm in chaos — this is where he was built. During a childhood of being berated, doubted, questioned, derided. Harper's capacity to ignore nonsense and process magnitude emerged early enough in his life that by the time he was 15 years old, everything that typically pollutes the mind of a teenaged baseball player no longer applied to him. He strode into showcase events knowing he was the best player there. He turned competition into fans. When Harper was 15, Castellanos, now his Phillies teammate, saw him at an event at Florida International University. With one swing, Harper converted him. “I can hit 'em,” Castellanos said. “I hit 'em farther than all my associates. But rattling. I can not hit it that far.”
A 12 months later, they had been teammates on the under-18 U.S. nationwide crew that gained gold on the Pan Am Games in Venezuela. A number of months after that, Harper dropped out of highschool, earned his GED and enrolled at a neighborhood junior school, all in an effort to get draft eligible a 12 months early. He hit 31 dwelling runs in 66 video games, was the slam dunk high choose and signed with the Nationals for $9.9 million. Harper spent a 12 months in the minor leagues, joined the Nationals in May 2012 and completed the season with essentially the most wins above substitute on a 98-win crew that captured the NL East crown. Harper had no enterprise being pretty much as good as he was.
“It's the same thing,” Turner mentioned, “with LeBron [James]. They're so good at such a young age and then it's kind of expected of you, but when they're good people and it doesn't go to their head — that's the more impressive part. There's so many things that could have gone wrong, and it's a really negative way of thinking about it. But, I mean, think about how many things that people do at 19, 20 that are just stupid.”
Not every part went proper instantly. Over the primary 4 video games of Harper's first postseason, the 2012 division sequence in opposition to St. Louis, he went 1-for-18 with six strikeouts. Then in the decisive Game 5, he tripled in the primary inning to stake Washington a 1-0 lead, homered in the third off starter Adam Wainwright to increase the result in 3-0 and noticed all these years of preparation starting to translate in October.
“That was kind of like, man, I can do this,” Harper mentioned. “The moment's not too big, obviously. It was kind of a stepping stone. And then each year after that, it got better.”
Two years after that notorious 2012 season in which the Nationals shut down Stephen Strasburg for the postseason and surrendered a six-run lead in the division sequence' deciding sport, Washington once more faltered in the playoffs, blowing home-field benefit in a division sequence loss to eventual World Series champion San Francisco. Harper was the one National who hit, launching three dwelling runs. Two extra division sequence losses ended his time in Washington and not using a single sequence win, and it was solely the 12 months after Harper left that the Nationals made an inconceivable run to a World Series victory.
In Philadelphia, Harper discovered the perfect model of himself. Consider what's extensively thought to be the perfect at-bat of his life, in Game 5 of the 2022 NLCS, in opposition to Padres nearer Robert Suarez. Before he left the dugout to hit in the eighth inning, Harper checked out hitting coach Kevin Long and instructed him: “I'm going to go deep here.” Attempting the herculean process of ignoring every part percolating in the air on the Bank, Harper known as a number of timeouts earlier than the primary pitch was even thrown.
“You rewatch that at-bat, and it's incredibly impressive,” Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham mentioned. “There's no one else. It's just him and a dance with the pitcher. It's literally what it looks like. There's no distraction. There's no nothing. It looks like there's not even a thought. It's just he's completely wrapped up in this moment, in this game with this guy on the mound with a lot of belief.”
Suarez believed for a purpose. His fastball was scorching. First 96 mph and fouled off. Then 97 for a ball. Then 98 and 100 and 99 foul, foul, foul. Next got here the second. Finally Suarez thought he had Harper dishonest fastball and uncorked a changeup. Not any previous changeup however a diabolical 91 mph dirtseeker that might have induced swings and misses from the overwhelming majority {of professional} hitters, and Harper as an alternative watched it go by.
On the following pitch, a 99 mph sinker dotted on the surface nook, Harper unleashed what announcer Joe Davis known as “the swing of his life.” Seven pitches into essentially the most consequential at-bat of his profession, he hammered the ultimate one to the other discipline for a house run.
“That's what great hitters do,” Cotham mentioned. “They just find a way, and you never know why they did it or were they sitting on it, but to me, it's wrapped up in the game, being one with the game and in this dance — truly part of this thing.”
Schwarber is probably the closest facsimile in the Phillies' clubhouse to Harper in phrases of his reverence of the postseason, and its imminence awakens one thing inside him.
“The biggest thing is allowing the game to slow down,” Schwarber mentioned. “Because if you can tick back everything when it's the most important moment of that game, slow everything down, take the noise out, realize that the pitcher's out there and recognize his heart rate's going, too, you're just putting yourself in a better position.”
Schwarber leaned again and grinned. Nobody will get paid in October, Schwarber mentioned, and he is proper: Even if gamers do obtain playoff shares that, for the championship-winning crew, can quantity to tons of of 1000's of {dollars}, their full paychecks cease on the finish of the common season.
“So you're going out there for one reason,” Schwarber mentioned. “It's just the purest form of baseball that can be played.”
CHAMPIONSHIP WINDOWS CLOSE shortly. It's a lesson the Philadelphia Phillies discovered the final time they gained a championship in 2008. They ran it again one too many occasions, and a half-decade-long collapse adopted. That it led them to Harper — to this time when baseball in Philadelphia feels so rattling alive — provides some solace. But it is also a cautionary story understood by Harper, who research the rhythms and historical past of sports activities with the assiduousness of a scholar.
Harper aspires to play till he is 42 years previous — one other decade, and past his contract, which expires when he's 39. That's as a result of he desires as many alternatives as doable at profitable; he cannot neglect how Dan Marino made the Super Bowl in his first season, misplaced and by no means acquired again. Schwarber and catcher J.T. Realmuto are free brokers after subsequent season, and in 2026, the Phillies are set to pay virtually $160 million to 6 gamers — Harper, Turner, Castellanos and pitchers Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola and Taijuan Walker — whose common age then might be 33.8.
It's why getting on observe earlier than October arrived this 12 months was so crucial for Harper. Heading into that September Saturday, he hadn't homered in 30 video games, the second-longest streak of his profession. The surging Mets jumped out to a 4-0 lead that day, Sept. 14. Harper lastly homered in the fourth inning to chop the deficit to 4-1, and two innings later, he blasted a two-run shot to additional erode a lead that the Mets ultimately would blow in a loss to the Phillies. After the sport, Krew and Brooklyn got here into the locker room, identical to daddy promised, and all the duties in his life, the issues that matter, had been aligning in his place of calm.
“And I feel that, right?” he mentioned. “I want to carry this team. With the guys that we have, I don't have to, obviously. I have to play Bryce Harper baseball. They need me to do that, but that's all year. That's not just the postseason. That's every day. That's a Saturday against the Mets in September, right?”
Never, throughout the homerless drought, did Harper panic. Even earlier than the 2 homers, his swing felt fantastic, and by the tip of the season, his numbers aligned virtually completely with current seasons: .285/.373/.525 with 30 dwelling runs, 87 RBIs and a career-high 42 doubles. He has discovered to not chase outcomes, lest he fall out of whack mechanically. More than that, it is a good lesson for the postseason forward, when the beginning pitching is at all times higher and the aid arms considerably so and hitters face a alternative. He tries to show this to the Phillies' youthful gamers, simply as veterans, equivalent to Jayson Werth with Washington, and coaches, equivalent to Joe Dillon in Philadelphia, taught him.
“We always talked about really good players doing bad in the postseason,” Harper mentioned. “It happens because they start chasing or they're not taking their walks or they don't have the confidence in the ability of the guy behind them. When you start playing for things that are bigger than you — playing for your team — all that stuff goes out the door.”
“No offense to 162 games,” Schwarber mentioned. “You play 162 games to the end. And then nothing matters except winning a baseball game. And this isn't about how many home runs you hit. This isn't about how many RBIs you have. This isn't what your batting average is. This is about trying to find a way to win a baseball game. And that's why the best baseball games are in the postseason. When you put special players in environments that are going to be like that, you're going to see a really good version of that player. Don't get me wrong. There's some people who get put in those scenarios and can't handle it.”
Harper refuses to let himself be something lower than the perfect model of that participant, conscious that to be prepared for the second takes greater than work or dedication or want or another bare-minimum components. Harper desires to consistently evolve, a troublesome threshold whenever you're 31 and it isn't as simple to remain in form because it as soon as was and the newborn is puking on you and you have to get up and bounce in the godforsaken cool tub once more.
“It's 39 degrees and I do it for three minutes,” Harper mentioned. “It's the hardest thing I do all day. I'm not kidding. I sit there and I contemplate my life every single time. I try to get in there and I scream and yell at myself inside, and I'm just like, all right, get in. And so I get in, it's three minutes and I'm out.”
Pain is achieve, and so a lot of Harper's days encompass the minuscule rituals or customs he has adopted to take care of his well being. The Phillies can't afford to lose him, so he tailors his life towards guaranteeing that won't occur. Harper doesn't eat something with synthetic dyes or seed oils. All of his bread and pasta is selfmade. When he is on the highway, he consumes solely meat and fruit. He loves Pilates. He arrives on the stadium about 4 hours earlier than the sport as an alternative of the 6½ that was once his commonplace and goes proper into the coach's room to satisfy up with the Phillies' therapeutic massage therapist for a 30-minute calming remedy.
And his physique feels prefer it did when he was a child and invincible. He's at 216 or 217 kilos, someplace between his ESPN the Magazine Body Issue weight (203) and essentially the most yoked model of himself (240). This, he'd prefer to imagine, is his championship weight, good to hold him by means of the postseason, when he'll take his walks and shorten up his swing to keep away from strikeouts and tiptoe the razor-thin line between aggressive and extreme on the basepaths. He will name dwelling runs and hit them, and he'll sing together with followers that he, too, is A-O, A-OK. He will do every part he can to symbolize Philadelphia whereas figuring out that the best method to symbolize Philadelphia is by profitable.
“Your superstar players have to show up,” Harper mentioned, and for him, the famous person, that is what that is actually about. It's the intersection of the calmness with the chaos, the consolation that 40,000 raucous souls are screaming and the contentment in not listening to a single one in all them. It is Philadelphia, and it's October, and it's 11 wins away from ceaselessly.
