There will be plenty of things to keep all of us occupied the next couple of days, of course, when the Nationals and the Mets renew hostilities at Citi Field.
There will be Daniel Murphy, returning to the scene of some of his most unforgettable achievements and most unforgivable base-running crimes. (And, not that you need to be reminded of this, but … go on and stand up and cheer your lungs out for the guy. It’s no sign of weakness or disloyalty. Thank him with your voice boxes. Then go ahead and root for a golden sombrero).
There will be Max Scherzer, returning to the same mound from which he no-hit the Mets and nearly perfect-gamed them last October. (And, yes, the way the Mets’ bats have been lying in state for two weeks, it isn’t the best draw of the cards to have to face a guy who struck out 20 his last time out, so you can boo him unabashedly).
There will be the underlying tension that was evident throughout all 19 games last year, specifically the six straight the Mets won in early August and early September when they turned what was supposed to be a down-to-the-wire pennant chase into a laugher. (And, no, there is little evidence that it’ll go down that way this year so go ahead and start chomping your fingers to the quick).
But there is really only one Nationals players who will demand your attention for every moment he can be accounted for on the field the next three days, and for three more days in Washington next week, and for the remaining 13 games of what will almost certainly be the most fascinating duel in baseball this spring, summer and fall.
His name is Bryce Aron Max Harper. He wears No. 34 for the Nationals. He may not be hitting .400, as Murphy is. He may not be as terrifying to stare down, as Scherzer is when he brings his A stuff to the fray. But he’s only the best player in baseball right now, and by a lot. He is the guy who will break your heart if you let him. And the guy you have to stop if you have any intention of stilling the Nats’ heart.
He’s vowed to make baseball fun again, in word, in deed, in baseball-cap message and, well … mission accomplished. Even if you dread his arrival, as you should.
Bryce Harper“He’s a baseball kid,” was the way Terry Collins described Harper last year. “He’s a baseball junkie and he plays so hard, you have to appreciate how he plays the game.”
He is also a fascinating point of light, the kind of star that other stars pay attention to, the kind of magnet talent that makes it essential you follow his every move even if you want to try to forget about him.
He started the season scalding hot, as if to justify his unanimous MVP last year. Then, just as he’d cooled to an almost ice-cap freeze, people started to walk him, in a Bonds-ian type frenzy. Which only reminds us — and him — how much fear he strikes in people. But it goes beyond that. When the Nats were in Kansas City, he paid a visit to the Negro League Museum and spoke eloquently about his time there. A few days later, in Chicago, he passed a jar around the team bus and presented it to a homeless woman outside Wrigley Field. Twenty-three and that precocious …
… and also 23 and capable of looking like a knucklehead (and please, who among us wasn’t a 23-year-old knucklehead?), as he did last week when he was ejected from a game with the Tigers in the ninth inning, then stormed the field after a teammate’s game-winning home run and cussed out the ump who ran him with the oldest profane salute on the books, in full view of the TV cameras.
Yeah. Good luck keeping your eyes off Harper. Because why would you?
So yes: If Collins wiggles four fingers from the dugout so often the next few days that it feels like he’s practicing some secret-society handshake, can you blame him? This series means an awful lot to the Mets, but it means even more to the Nats, who have 2015 to put behind them, who understand that they must first reclaim the East from the Mets if they want to bury the possibility that they’ll be remembered as a sure-thing dynasty that never was.
Bryce Harper is the kind of player who takes those missions seriously, and personally. Would you pitch to him with a game — and, possibly, the road map of the whole season — on the line?
(Yeah. Didn’t think so).
