Commentary

Harper shows Yanks a different side

WASHINGTON -- When Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper was ejected from Wednesday's game against the New York Yankees after arguing a low strike, there was no celebration in the Yankees' dugout. No high-fives. No fist pumps.

But behind those stone faces and beneath those pinstripes, the Yankees' hearts must have been lifted, for Harper's exit gave them something they had not had moments earlier: a much better chance to win.

Harper, 22, has been one of the best players in the majors in recent years, but he had recently been on a hot streak to rival some of the best hitters who ever played. Before Wednesday's third-inning departure, Harper had hit 10 home runs in his past 12 games, including six in one three-game stretch.

His recent production was enough for his hitting coach, Rick Schu, to call it "scary" and his teammate Drew Storen to call it "scary" and one of the Nationals' principal owners, Mark Lerner, to call it "so scary."

For opponents like the Yankees, who lost both games of their two-game series in Washington, it must have been scary, too.

Not just because Harper was hitting .333, which ranked third in the National League, or because he led the National League in home runs (15) and the majors in everything from runs batted in (38) and walks (37) to on-base (.472) and slugging percentages (.732).

Watching him should give the Yankees a chill because he represents everything they are not: young, supremely talented and exciting.

A lifetime ago, or so it seems, the Yankees collected big stars like Harper. If they couldn't build them from scratch -- the Jeters and the Riveras and the rest of the so-called and recently departed Core Four -- they just went out and bought them.

But those are the Yankees of yesterday. Today's Yankees are aging and aching, with their biggest star, Alex Rodriguez, a serial liar pushing 40 (years, not homers). The rest? C.C. Sabathia and Carlos Beltran are on the downside of their career. Jacoby Ellsbury, the former Boston Red Sox star, cannot seem to stay healthy and is now on the disabled list, where Mark Teixeira has also spent substantial time in recent years.

Like it or not, Rodriguez is the face of the Yankees, whether he is bashing homers and striking out in the ninth or repeating, over and over again, that "I just want to play baseball."

Harper doesn't just want to play baseball. He wants to play it and win it and hit a home run in every at-bat and then talk and talk about how -- look out -- he is just getting started.

After the game Wednesday, when saying that the umpire went too far in tossing him out of the game -- his second ejection in a week -- Harper said what should have been obvious: "I don't think 40,000 people came to watch him ump tonight. Plain and simple."

It was feisty, yes, but it was also classic Harper.

At spring training this year, his reaction to the Nationals' surprising signing of pitcher Max Scherzer wasn't the measured response of a humble player looking to avoid controversy. Instead, it was, "Where's my ring?"

That was juicy bulletin board material for every team that plays him, but it just made his fans love him more. In his fourth season in the majors, with a bushy beard and a head of hair that is often coifed like a pop singer's, Harper is the biggest star in a city that hasn't celebrated a championship since the Redskins won the Super Bowl eight months before he was born.

"I love his energy," said Francisco Hernandez, an Army officer who came to Wednesday's game with his 4-year-old daughter. "It's like he's still a kid out there, saying things that a kid would say."

Early in his career, Harper had a reputation for being reckless. Twice, he hurt his knee running into walls. He injured his thumb diving headfirst into a base. But this season, he has been healthy and his teammates have sensed a huge jump in maturity.

"Now, he's 95 percent moving in the perfect direction, and he's learned that playing harder isn't always playing better," Storen said. "It's parallel to golf. You get to the last drive on the 18th tee box and say, 'I'm going to hit my best drive of the day and I'm going to swing really hard,' and that ball is going to hit every tree possible. The key is not riding that emotional roller coaster, and Bryce has learned to do that."

Sports on 05/22/2015

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