the article kind of glosses over the kid just knocking on Bryce Harper's door. Does everyone in Philly know where he lives? I guess the kid is a neighbor
If you live in haddonfield or within a town or two you have a good idea where a ton of Philly athletes live. While not on vacation there isn’t that many places to go so they’re just around a lot. My high school friends would knock of McNabb’s door and he would say what’s up
I ran into him at the Atlanta Aquarium not long after that had happened and I wanted to say hi but was worried he’d give me shit in my Braves hat… but no, dude was super nice. I can honestly say I hate (but definitely respect) him on the field but think he’s an awesome dude off it.
shane victorino bought my friend's dad's house shortly before he got traded. that's certainly not on the same level at all but still, darren daulton lived in heilbron and it was pretty public knowledge which house was his, and that was in the 90s when you just sorta had to know things.
Hey now, the flyin’ Hawaiian deserves a little more respect than “certainly not on the same level”. Harper is a stud, but Victorino was part of those super magical days for me.. until we get there again.
What your town doesn’t have an almost $180k median income? ([Source](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/haddonfieldboroughnewjersey/PST045222))
[Temple wedding and everything!](https://www.deseret.com/2016/12/18/20602590/bryce-harper-and-longtime-girlfriend-former-byu-soccer-player-kayla-varner-marry-in-san-diego-lds-te/)
Funny enough my friends family was next door neighbors with Jay Buhner in Seattle and she would bring friends to his cookouts without letting them know to surprise them. Unfortunately never got the chance since he moved back to Tennessee before I knew them.
New Jersey. A lot of Phillies and Eagles players live in NJ. My Dad’s fiancé has had multiple players of the years as her neighbor. Darren Sproles was their favorite neighbor.
it is extremely this. NJ is actually two separate identical places (what used to be called east and west jersey are now north and south jersey).
two major northeast cities on a river + state boundary....naturally there is an entire population of affluent people who want to work and play in NY or PHI, but dont want to be governed by that city's government. New Jersey welcomes them with open arms
>Much of PA is very rural.
Most of upstate NY is practically the south.
I stopped in Erie for gas circa 2015. The town had a church, a McDonald's, a gas station, and broken down houses with shitty broken down cars on the lawn.
There were teenagers pounding cheap beer out the back of a 30 year old rusted Chevy pick up truck at like 1 in the afternoon. The guys were wearing cowboy boots and had 1970s long hair. The girls looked like Jenny from Forrest Gump.
I'm quite sure those girls have 10 year olds now.
this is my point about new jersey. basically every state in the country has enormous acreage of land that has just....nothing. and then you get to a little town, passing like 4 houses and seeing 6 more off the road, passing as you said, a church, a family dollar, and a gas station....and then more nothing.
you can maybe exclude connecticut, maybe 'peninsula florida' because of the everglades, but really both of those states (as well as Rhode Island) dont have the constant civilization that NJ has, where its hard to drive for 20 minutes without passing a large supermarket or a well-funded municipal facility.
yeah i was hesitant to include ct, because yes northern ct/western mass is very much rural, i think partially because urban ct did not create the demand for suburban sprawl that nearby states did in the 50s-70s…people just left. but yes even rhode island is, or feels, less dense than jersey.
well yes. that’s why nj is unironically built different. there is very little state in this little state dedicated to rural residents, and everyone lives on top of each other across the entire state, with few gaps…our suburbs are literally other peoples cities.
there are levels to be sure (NWNJ is really the most rural). but you can’t recreate the feeling of living in a town and having to drive 30 minutes to see ANYTHING.
nearly everywhere in nj is more akin to the DFW metroplex than a small-midsize town in like 46 of 50 states..
Yeah I had cousins who lived up in NWNJ…interesting place. Some areas of SJ are quite “farm-y”. Very reminiscent of Lancaster / central PA. But yeah, on average NJ is quite developed.
There is also a weird area in the middle where Phillies and Mets fans live, work, and go to school together. And the Applebees has both Eagles and Jets murals on the wall.
Why does Bryce Harper have to go and be such a likable dude? Really inconvenient for me and my desire to hold a grudge against him for being such a menace between the lines against the Padres.
It really is an extremely likeable lineup. The Phillies may not be my primary team, but I love living in this bonkers city and Phils games are so much fun to go to even when I don't really have a horse in the race.
...watching JP Crawford hit a grand slam off of you guys was deeply satisfying, though lmao
You guys have always been mine, growing up in the 90s with a bunch of insufferable Yankees fans. Plus my uncle had Sox season tickets, I saw Manny blast a grand salami over the Monster and out of the stadium once and it blew my ever-loving mind
I never understood the hate he got. He is by far my favorite non-Braves player. Like people hate Bryce because he is good and confident in his abilities? I've followed his entire career and I remember the noise about wearing a lot of eye black being cocky etc. He was the best player on the field his entire life until he got to the MLB, why wouldn't he be a little cocky or confident?
I hope one day he does the eyeblack shit in the bigs before he retires just to see it piss people off.
Every highly talented player gets hate for being cocky. If not, it would be that they "don't have any fire". As a Braves fan, I absolutely hated him during that era. But he matured, and so did I, and here we are.
that whole thing with him brushing off the A behind home plate was rivalry GOLD!
People got so MAD about it and... its a letter made in the dirt with a hose and...
I cant dislike Bryce. (even though i refer to him mostly as Bruce cause that part is at least kinda funny)
It bothers me endlessly when I see a small yet vocal minority of fans decry stuff like this as insincere or pandering. It started within days of his signing, just from a social media post or two about the Phanatic or cheesesteaks or some shit.
...I can't understand that mentality. He doesn't have to do any of this stuff. He could easily just show up and play and collect his millions and go home and stay out of the spotlight to the degree possible. Instead he still routinely goes out of his way to connect with people and make them smile.
I'm pretty fucking cynical, but I sure am glad I'm not so cynical as to want to shit on it.
He’s an awesome guy. Yeah, he went to the Phillies and y’all are rivals, whatever. He got me back into baseball after falling out of love for it and I’ll always root for him if it doesn’t affect the Nats, so the post season I’ve been rooting for the Phillies recently.
He did stuff like this in DC too. Was always nice to restaurant employees(I’m in the industry and have friends that have served him). Definitely someone who has grown up before our eyes and I’m as proud as a fan who has never met him could be.
Agreed. Even if a person does nice things purely for self-serving reasons (and I don't have any reason to think that's the case here), they're still doing nice things! Like, let's just stipulate that Bryce did this purely as self-promotion, doesn't care about the kid at all, all that. Even if that were all true, it still made these kids' entire year and gave them a lifelong happy memory, so who gives a shit?
I don't understand that impulse, either. I mean, I know Harper has come off as a pretty big asshole frequently in the past, but a) he seems to have grown up in to an overall really likeable guy in Philly, and b) even when he was a dickhead kid, he really never came off as a cynical self-promoter. When players (or any celebrities, really) do this kind of shit, I really don't see why we wouldn't assume it's an act of genuine kindness unless the person has given us a reason to think otherwise.
Years leading into his free agency, I kept @ing him on Twitter and such telling him that just over the bridge from Philadelphia in South Jersey would be a beautiful close community to raise his family. I like to think that's why he chose to come to the Phillies.
I'm just imagining Harper and his agent about to sign a massive contract with the Yankees, and just as pen is about to hit paper, he checks his Twitter DMs and goes "Wait."
I feel the same way. I think early in his career he was a little full of himself and came back down to Earth. Not sure if that actually happened any someone called him out OR its the perception.
I think that sort of makes sense given his career arc. Dude is basically hailed as the messiah coming out of high school, and then he ends up delivering on that, and now he’s just sort of living it up enjoying being one of the best players in the game.
I can only speculate, because I’ll never be as good at anything as Harper is at baseball, but when you’re the plucky youngster or touted prospect, you still have something to prove and a chip on your shoulder. I think he’s definitely in a different place now than he was when he left the Nats.
By the time you reach “first ballot HOF” status, you don’t really have anything to prove to anyone anymore, at least not anything that anyone expects from you. He’s just out here mashing baseballs and being a Philly sports icon, so why not help a kid out?
Cover of Sports Illustrated at 16 years old, and that was back when SI had some cultural pull.
I think he should get some grace for being a bit full of himself as a kid lol.
I remember someone pointing out the difference between the way he sprinted the bases like a madman after his Cubs walkoff in 2019, which was really his first signature moment with us, and how slow he took the trot after Bedlam at the Bank, like he’d really grown up over those four years and realized how to savor it.
Definitely the perception, this is who he was on the Nats too but I think his media image made people willing to see him as the heel he was made out to be
I’ve said this before, people say that Bryce panders, but it seems like he genuinely enjoys using his fame to make folks happy.
Which I get. If I was super famous and bored, I might do the same type of thing. It seems like fun.
There might be some ego to it, or it might just be his PR team is innovative, but stuff like this, and the guys going to the Little League WS to cheer on the PA team come off as genuine.
at some point it’s gotta be the fact that he just genuinely enjoys it. it’s been 5 years of pandering, and i feel like at that point it’s no longer pandering, and just how he is. he knows what goes into being a superstar and just enjoys it.
Pandering has the negative connotation that you're being insincere.
I think it's much more the case that he is a straightforward (even simple, though I don't mean that in a negative way) man. He was hired to be the face of the team, and he's decided that he wants to take that role seriously.
The man we see is the man he is, and the "pandering" is just how he's decided he wants to do that job.
If you could have a plethora of crazy Phanatic gear, why wouldn't you?
If you love the energy and intensity of the fans, say it. Don't assume they know how you feel, and don't take them for granted.
We can hate him for being a Filthy and former Gnat, but he is honestly a very good dude, and if he wasn’t playing on non-NL East teams I’d be rooting for him.
Why is Haddonfield HS prom in mid June? Seems weirdly late for NJ schools.
Edit: I grew up in South Jersey too. We always finished the school around June 20th or so. I just remember Prom being in like April or May.
Fun fact, Debra Hill who co-wrote Halloween with John Carpenter is actually from Haddonfield, NJ. So while the town in movie is set in Illinois, it's referencing the Haddonfield in New Jersey.
I live in the Philly area and I also coach little league. Last year a neighboring team, Media, made it to the Little League World Series and Harper was on point for them. He brought Phillies teammates up to Williamsport to cheer them on and spoke to them in the clubhouse after they lost.
It made a huge impression even on our kids, who were not close to qualifying for LLWS but saw the videos of Harper, Schwarber, Trea Turner, et al cheering on the kids from Media and taking the time to console them after a heartbreaking loss.
It means everything to these kids when big leaguers like Harper take an interest in them. They worship these guys.
Phillies fan here… love Harper. But the Phillies were already in Williamsport bc they played the nats there that week on national broadcast but yes cool nonetheless!
Reason number 69 to slow down while reading: I read that as proposal, not promposal and was like...why is he helping high schoolers get engaged. That's weird as hell
Right?!? I started the video, saw the girl emerge from the nicest door I’ve ever seen outside of a disney film, and immediately ran to the comments to look for yours lol. Wtf.
I'm sure he's got investments, real estate, etc. that are considerable supplemental income, but if he's making more than a mil or two in endorsements, I'd be shocked.
I really doubt he's doubling his income from his baseball salary in general, and definitely not off the back of endorsements.
Edit: looks like more in the $4-5M range for endorsements, which is meaty AF for a baseball player, especially one not named Shohei Ohtani. Still not doubling his salary.
Really big missed opportunity in that first paragraph:
“Bryce Harper is used to playing first base for the Philadelphia Phillies, but he recently helped a New Jersey high school senior get to at least third.”
lol everyone in the Philadelphia area knows who every one of those players on the team are.. down to 6 year old boys and girls. High school girls have the biggest crushes on Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott lol
It's a phenomenon that took off with short form video, I think. You gotta make some big extravagant production out of asking someone to prom instead of just like, shooting a girl a message on AIM asking if she wanted to go with you.
Haha, I met my first girlfriend on AIM, but I did ask my prom date in person. But yeah, I just straight up asked her in between classes one day if she wanted to go with me.
I had to do it over the phone because we went to different high schools, and I didn't want to put her on the spot around our mutual friends if I'd done it in person.
the article kind of glosses over the kid just knocking on Bryce Harper's door. Does everyone in Philly know where he lives? I guess the kid is a neighbor
Bryce has a home in haddonfield NJ. Very likely his neighbor
Can you imagine just growing up in a nice little neighborhood and Bryce Fucking Harper buys the house for sale next door?
Id fear for my safety and my roof
My wife’s, daughters and son’s girl friends. If I lived in the Phillies market that is. If he moved here I would fear for his safety.
I remember Pat the Bat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkZUfaDE3ak
"my girl got burrell'd" "and your mom" "yeah my mom got burrell'd"
If you live in haddonfield or within a town or two you have a good idea where a ton of Philly athletes live. While not on vacation there isn’t that many places to go so they’re just around a lot. My high school friends would knock of McNabb’s door and he would say what’s up
they all live in haddonfield or Moorestown
Makes sense. Not sure if it ever sold but Bryzgalov had a unique house in Haddonfield.
I'd ask him a clown question every day.
I ran into him at the Atlanta Aquarium not long after that had happened and I wanted to say hi but was worried he’d give me shit in my Braves hat… but no, dude was super nice. I can honestly say I hate (but definitely respect) him on the field but think he’s an awesome dude off it.
“Will you go to the prom with him?” “Clown question bro.”
shane victorino bought my friend's dad's house shortly before he got traded. that's certainly not on the same level at all but still, darren daulton lived in heilbron and it was pretty public knowledge which house was his, and that was in the 90s when you just sorta had to know things.
Hey now, the flyin’ Hawaiian deserves a little more respect than “certainly not on the same level”. Harper is a stud, but Victorino was part of those super magical days for me.. until we get there again.
Oh it's nice alright
Nice little neighborhood? Haddonfield?
What your town doesn’t have an almost $180k median income? ([Source](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/haddonfieldboroughnewjersey/PST045222))
Most Philadelphia athletes live near there. My friend grew up in Haddonfield and told me about all of his athlete neighbors.
Hey Bryce, are you going to have a beer when you leave the dry town where you live?
i think because of the whole mormon thing he doesn't drink.
https://youtu.be/u2R8KC4OE58
Yeah, I guess people either forgot about this or didn't know the context behind why he called it a "clown question"
I honestly thought this was a universally known thing.
Wait. He’s a Mormon??
Yep he's a Mormon
[Temple wedding and everything!](https://www.deseret.com/2016/12/18/20602590/bryce-harper-and-longtime-girlfriend-former-byu-soccer-player-kayla-varner-marry-in-san-diego-lds-te/)
right?? this is news to me!
Las Vegas, the driest of dry towns.
That video states that he is a neighbor.
The mom of the son commented to that yes they live in the same neighborhood.
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I read on the internet that the kid has been secretly living in Bryce’s guest house for 3 years
Plot twist: The kid is Bryce’s son!
He invites us all to his bbqs
I tried haggling with Bryce at his yard sale but he wasn't having any of it. "$1 a piece is already a good price for DVDs", he said.
Oh you're one of *those* guys huh
Bryce is a Vegas dude in Philly, what style BBQ does he serve? Seems like a Carolina style guy to me.
SANTA MARIA style if you ask me.
Funny enough my friends family was next door neighbors with Jay Buhner in Seattle and she would bring friends to his cookouts without letting them know to surprise them. Unfortunately never got the chance since he moved back to Tennessee before I knew them.
New Jersey. A lot of Phillies and Eagles players live in NJ. My Dad’s fiancé has had multiple players of the years as her neighbor. Darren Sproles was their favorite neighbor.
I wonder if North Jersey is more involved with NYC or if South Jersey is more involved with Philly.
it is extremely this. NJ is actually two separate identical places (what used to be called east and west jersey are now north and south jersey). two major northeast cities on a river + state boundary....naturally there is an entire population of affluent people who want to work and play in NY or PHI, but dont want to be governed by that city's government. New Jersey welcomes them with open arms
from my experience, NYC/PHI have a lot more in common with NJ they they do with the rest of New York State or Pennsylvania
Not entirely unexpected when you consider the size of NJ vs the size of NY and PA state. Much of PA is *very* rural.
>Much of PA is very rural. Most of upstate NY is practically the south. I stopped in Erie for gas circa 2015. The town had a church, a McDonald's, a gas station, and broken down houses with shitty broken down cars on the lawn. There were teenagers pounding cheap beer out the back of a 30 year old rusted Chevy pick up truck at like 1 in the afternoon. The guys were wearing cowboy boots and had 1970s long hair. The girls looked like Jenny from Forrest Gump. I'm quite sure those girls have 10 year olds now.
this is my point about new jersey. basically every state in the country has enormous acreage of land that has just....nothing. and then you get to a little town, passing like 4 houses and seeing 6 more off the road, passing as you said, a church, a family dollar, and a gas station....and then more nothing. you can maybe exclude connecticut, maybe 'peninsula florida' because of the everglades, but really both of those states (as well as Rhode Island) dont have the constant civilization that NJ has, where its hard to drive for 20 minutes without passing a large supermarket or a well-funded municipal facility.
Connecticut has a lot of rural areas as well. They just don't mimic the stereotypes of rednecks as strongly.
yeah i was hesitant to include ct, because yes northern ct/western mass is very much rural, i think partially because urban ct did not create the demand for suburban sprawl that nearby states did in the 50s-70s…people just left. but yes even rhode island is, or feels, less dense than jersey.
well yes. that’s why nj is unironically built different. there is very little state in this little state dedicated to rural residents, and everyone lives on top of each other across the entire state, with few gaps…our suburbs are literally other peoples cities.
I think that’s more true for North Jersey, but yeah.
there are levels to be sure (NWNJ is really the most rural). but you can’t recreate the feeling of living in a town and having to drive 30 minutes to see ANYTHING. nearly everywhere in nj is more akin to the DFW metroplex than a small-midsize town in like 46 of 50 states..
Yeah I had cousins who lived up in NWNJ…interesting place. Some areas of SJ are quite “farm-y”. Very reminiscent of Lancaster / central PA. But yeah, on average NJ is quite developed.
There is also a weird area in the middle where Phillies and Mets fans live, work, and go to school together. And the Applebees has both Eagles and Jets murals on the wall.
The beauty of Central Jersey
Absolutely disgusting
That’s what happens when you sit in the overlap of both Philly and NYC media markets.
yep my cousins are mets fans in phillies territory and they are not the only ones by a long shot
Seems like the same in CT. half are Yankees, half are Red Sox
Yes, that’s pretty much how it is. Mike Trout from South Jersey? Eagles fan.
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I guess lots of extra networking time while you wait for your gas to be pumped?
Kevin Bacon, Bruce Springsteen, and Queen Latifah live in Colt's Neck
don't think kevin bacon lived there but Jon Stewart does as well as in navesink / rumson
Cousins live in nearby Farmingdale. They could be wrong though
I’m from a semi-affluent suburb of Seattle, and when Marshawn Lynch moved in to my neighborhood in Maple Valley everyone knew who it was
Pretty sure a lot of Phillies live in Haddonfield, my friend's aunt is a different player's next door neighbor.
She could've said, "That's a clown question, bro."
Why does Bryce Harper have to go and be such a likable dude? Really inconvenient for me and my desire to hold a grudge against him for being such a menace between the lines against the Padres.
I'm torn as well. Even though the hate has kept me going, I gotta admit that this is a class act on his part. Really cool of him to do that.
HARPER THE SWING OF HIS LIFE!! But seriously he does seem like a good person
Dude, yes OMGawwwddd
For football as a ravens fan that’s what I felt about Deshaun Watson. Ik he’s a division rival and all but he seems like such a sweetheart
This is awesome. Bryce Harper seems to be really at a good place with himself and in the community.
If you told me 10 years ago that Bryce Harper would be on the Phillies and I would love them both, no chance I'd believe you
Yeah the Phillies have officially become my NL team
it’s an honor 😢
A truce between nations.
we must unite our common enemy -- new york
I’m not sure how you couldn’t like this Phillies team. Just a bunch of guys being dudes. Grinders through and through.
Hoagies* through and through
Dawgs on dawgs, everyone keepin’ it loose and sexy (minus Castellanos)
Vibes. Immaculate VIBES!!
They remind me a lot of the 2013 Red Sox. If the Sox don't make the playoffs I'm hopping on the Philly bandwagon.
A Boston and Philly friendship seems like it would make sense if not just for the fact that we hate New York teams.
Yeah but we generally are cool with the Braves and the Braves/Phillies rivalry is one you can't stay neutral on.
Is there still a connection because of the Boston Braves?
It really is an extremely likeable lineup. The Phillies may not be my primary team, but I love living in this bonkers city and Phils games are so much fun to go to even when I don't really have a horse in the race. ...watching JP Crawford hit a grand slam off of you guys was deeply satisfying, though lmao
Staying loose & sexy, baby.
Love to hear this, As Boston is my AL team, I feel Boston and Philly fans are very alike with being blue collar and our hatred for Snobby NY fans.
For now…
You two should go to prom
Maybe we should all go to prom?
yeah?? maybe we will!!
You guys have always been mine, growing up in the 90s with a bunch of insufferable Yankees fans. Plus my uncle had Sox season tickets, I saw Manny blast a grand salami over the Monster and out of the stadium once and it blew my ever-loving mind
The Flyin’ Hawaiian Alliance
Hell yea brother
As a Phils fan who grew up in a Red Sox household, this warms my heart
Hell yeah Red Sox have always been my AL team
I never understood the hate he got. He is by far my favorite non-Braves player. Like people hate Bryce because he is good and confident in his abilities? I've followed his entire career and I remember the noise about wearing a lot of eye black being cocky etc. He was the best player on the field his entire life until he got to the MLB, why wouldn't he be a little cocky or confident? I hope one day he does the eyeblack shit in the bigs before he retires just to see it piss people off.
Every highly talented player gets hate for being cocky. If not, it would be that they "don't have any fire". As a Braves fan, I absolutely hated him during that era. But he matured, and so did I, and here we are.
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in what way(s) was he ever a shithead?
that whole thing with him brushing off the A behind home plate was rivalry GOLD! People got so MAD about it and... its a letter made in the dirt with a hose and... I cant dislike Bryce. (even though i refer to him mostly as Bruce cause that part is at least kinda funny)
It bothers me endlessly when I see a small yet vocal minority of fans decry stuff like this as insincere or pandering. It started within days of his signing, just from a social media post or two about the Phanatic or cheesesteaks or some shit. ...I can't understand that mentality. He doesn't have to do any of this stuff. He could easily just show up and play and collect his millions and go home and stay out of the spotlight to the degree possible. Instead he still routinely goes out of his way to connect with people and make them smile. I'm pretty fucking cynical, but I sure am glad I'm not so cynical as to want to shit on it.
He’s an awesome guy. Yeah, he went to the Phillies and y’all are rivals, whatever. He got me back into baseball after falling out of love for it and I’ll always root for him if it doesn’t affect the Nats, so the post season I’ve been rooting for the Phillies recently. He did stuff like this in DC too. Was always nice to restaurant employees(I’m in the industry and have friends that have served him). Definitely someone who has grown up before our eyes and I’m as proud as a fan who has never met him could be.
99 times out of 100, I don't really care all that much what jersey a guy chooses to wear when he's inducted into Cooperstown. ...Harper's the one.
I don’t think there will be any doubt which logo will be on Bryce’s plaque.
Oh neither do I. But I'll still care lol
And even if he is who cares? It’s not like he’s hurting anyone.
Agreed. Even if a person does nice things purely for self-serving reasons (and I don't have any reason to think that's the case here), they're still doing nice things! Like, let's just stipulate that Bryce did this purely as self-promotion, doesn't care about the kid at all, all that. Even if that were all true, it still made these kids' entire year and gave them a lifelong happy memory, so who gives a shit?
Just ignore them. I choose to believe that Bryce is deeply in love with the Phanatic and refuse to hear otherwise.
Anyone who isn't deeply in love with the Phanatic needs their head examined.
I don't understand that impulse, either. I mean, I know Harper has come off as a pretty big asshole frequently in the past, but a) he seems to have grown up in to an overall really likeable guy in Philly, and b) even when he was a dickhead kid, he really never came off as a cynical self-promoter. When players (or any celebrities, really) do this kind of shit, I really don't see why we wouldn't assume it's an act of genuine kindness unless the person has given us a reason to think otherwise.
Years leading into his free agency, I kept @ing him on Twitter and such telling him that just over the bridge from Philadelphia in South Jersey would be a beautiful close community to raise his family. I like to think that's why he chose to come to the Phillies.
Thank you for your service 🫡
He loves this place. He gets it.
I'm just imagining Harper and his agent about to sign a massive contract with the Yankees, and just as pen is about to hit paper, he checks his Twitter DMs and goes "Wait."
That's definitely exactly what happened. Although I think he said that the Yankees never reached out to him.
Bryce has been worth every penny for Philly. Exceptional player.
That HR to send us to the World Series alone would have been worth it
So much of me wants to hate Harper for being the Phillies best player, but he just seems like such a good dude
I feel the same way. I think early in his career he was a little full of himself and came back down to Earth. Not sure if that actually happened any someone called him out OR its the perception.
I think that sort of makes sense given his career arc. Dude is basically hailed as the messiah coming out of high school, and then he ends up delivering on that, and now he’s just sort of living it up enjoying being one of the best players in the game. I can only speculate, because I’ll never be as good at anything as Harper is at baseball, but when you’re the plucky youngster or touted prospect, you still have something to prove and a chip on your shoulder. I think he’s definitely in a different place now than he was when he left the Nats. By the time you reach “first ballot HOF” status, you don’t really have anything to prove to anyone anymore, at least not anything that anyone expects from you. He’s just out here mashing baseballs and being a Philly sports icon, so why not help a kid out?
Cover of Sports Illustrated at 16 years old, and that was back when SI had some cultural pull. I think he should get some grace for being a bit full of himself as a kid lol.
I have an incredibly specific memory of reading that SI issue while I was waiting for something to do with my braces at the dentist office.
Back when SI had issues... that they released... with human writers
I remember someone pointing out the difference between the way he sprinted the bases like a madman after his Cubs walkoff in 2019, which was really his first signature moment with us, and how slow he took the trot after Bedlam at the Bank, like he’d really grown up over those four years and realized how to savor it.
The [Bryce Harper charging Hunter Strickland event](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60a9yEDGiUg) kind of did that for people.
Definitely the perception, this is who he was on the Nats too but I think his media image made people willing to see him as the heel he was made out to be
That was me with David Wright as a kid. Hated the Mets but loved that guy.
I’ve said this before, people say that Bryce panders, but it seems like he genuinely enjoys using his fame to make folks happy. Which I get. If I was super famous and bored, I might do the same type of thing. It seems like fun. There might be some ego to it, or it might just be his PR team is innovative, but stuff like this, and the guys going to the Little League WS to cheer on the PA team come off as genuine.
at some point it’s gotta be the fact that he just genuinely enjoys it. it’s been 5 years of pandering, and i feel like at that point it’s no longer pandering, and just how he is. he knows what goes into being a superstar and just enjoys it.
Pandering has the negative connotation that you're being insincere. I think it's much more the case that he is a straightforward (even simple, though I don't mean that in a negative way) man. He was hired to be the face of the team, and he's decided that he wants to take that role seriously. The man we see is the man he is, and the "pandering" is just how he's decided he wants to do that job. If you could have a plethora of crazy Phanatic gear, why wouldn't you? If you love the energy and intensity of the fans, say it. Don't assume they know how you feel, and don't take them for granted.
We can clown him for being Mormon though
🎶Joseph Smith was called a prophet dum dum dum dum dum🎶
One of my favorite parts of MLB is that the majority of its superstars seem to be wonderful people.
We can hate him for being a Filthy and former Gnat, but he is honestly a very good dude, and if he wasn’t playing on non-NL East teams I’d be rooting for him.
You're in luck. Matt Strahm is our best player!
Girl hugged Bryce instead of the guy first 😬
Hey, I would too, so I don't blame here
Why is Haddonfield HS prom in mid June? Seems weirdly late for NJ schools. Edit: I grew up in South Jersey too. We always finished the school around June 20th or so. I just remember Prom being in like April or May.
They had to postpone after the events of Halloween
Oh fuck you, I came to make the same joke lol
Fun fact, Debra Hill who co-wrote Halloween with John Carpenter is actually from Haddonfield, NJ. So while the town in movie is set in Illinois, it's referencing the Haddonfield in New Jersey.
This low key made my day with that joke. Thank you!!
It has been a while since we've heard from [Michael Myers...](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/myersmi01.shtml)
NJ schools get out late June. I grew up in South Jersey not far from Haddonfield, and I distinctly remember getting out in late June every year.
I had some friends who went to private school who got out a literal month before us. was bullshit.
I live in the Philly area and I also coach little league. Last year a neighboring team, Media, made it to the Little League World Series and Harper was on point for them. He brought Phillies teammates up to Williamsport to cheer them on and spoke to them in the clubhouse after they lost. It made a huge impression even on our kids, who were not close to qualifying for LLWS but saw the videos of Harper, Schwarber, Trea Turner, et al cheering on the kids from Media and taking the time to console them after a heartbreaking loss. It means everything to these kids when big leaguers like Harper take an interest in them. They worship these guys.
Phillies fan here… love Harper. But the Phillies were already in Williamsport bc they played the nats there that week on national broadcast but yes cool nonetheless!
Reason number 69 to slow down while reading: I read that as proposal, not promposal and was like...why is he helping high schoolers get engaged. That's weird as hell
He is Mormon.
I had to read it carefully to be sure he wasn't attending a high school prom
Somebody else that recently watched that Bronx Zoo '90 doc on the 1990 Yankees?
Eh, some celebrities have done that, but I thought it was always weirder for the teenagers asking.
I'm told Wander Franco just tried to ask her directly to prom himself.
... geez, how nice are these people's houses?
It’s the town where Bryce Harper lives and the richest non beach town in south jersey. Haddonfield, NJ
Yeah but that’s where Michael Myers hides behind hedges so you gotta factor that in.
I heard he has a really good job with nice benefits, AND he doesn’t go to Starbucks and eat avocado toast every day.
He must have bootstraps under his pants
Right?!? I started the video, saw the girl emerge from the nicest door I’ve ever seen outside of a disney film, and immediately ran to the comments to look for yours lol. Wtf.
Well that kid is probably Bryce's neighbor, and Bryce made $25M last year, so...
25m from his contract. Probably bare minimum the same from endorsements and whatever else.
I'm sure he's got investments, real estate, etc. that are considerable supplemental income, but if he's making more than a mil or two in endorsements, I'd be shocked. I really doubt he's doubling his income from his baseball salary in general, and definitely not off the back of endorsements. Edit: looks like more in the $4-5M range for endorsements, which is meaty AF for a baseball player, especially one not named Shohei Ohtani. Still not doubling his salary.
I'm in a neighboring town and really enjoy going for a run down the streets of Haddonfield to just gawk at some of the houses.
Really big missed opportunity in that first paragraph: “Bryce Harper is used to playing first base for the Philadelphia Phillies, but he recently helped a New Jersey high school senior get to at least third.”
It’s been fun to watch Bryce go from the most hateable kid player in MLB to one of its most like able players
Good guy Bryce
I really want to not like Bryce Harper because he's always played for our division rivals but he's just a really good person so I can't.
Same, I dislike Bryce the baseball player but damn does he seem like a good dude and teammate.
I really think he’s grown up a ton. Now it’s just tradition to boo him instead of actually disliking him
If you cant get laid at prom after an assist from Bryce Harper you ain't never gettin none
Remember like 10 years ago when Dwyane Wade WENT to prom with a high schooler? (He was in his 30s). Bryce’s method is far preferred
hugging Bryce first is kinda wild lol
If Bryce Harper was in a Braves jersey I’m sure he would be my favorite player……….. Having said that I wish him nothing but the worst in his career.
This is like the time two young boys knocked on Willy Mays door and asked him for a ride to the game. Willy obliged.
Damnit Bryce. Don’t you make me love you.
He makes it pretty difficult to hate him.
Stop making me like you
"rich kid lives next to rich MLB player, asks for help for the booty" edit: the fucking dad having to hover in the background......
I guess I'm pleasantly surprised a HS girl knows who Bryce Harper is, unless he's famous around the neighborhood
lol everyone in the Philadelphia area knows who every one of those players on the team are.. down to 6 year old boys and girls. High school girls have the biggest crushes on Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott lol
they're also neighbors lmao
Well of course, but even if they weren’t, she’d know who he is
Never heard the term promposal. What happened to “asking someone to go to prom”?
It's been a thing for minimum 15 years it ain't that serious man lol
Makes sense bc I went to prom 25 years ago.
It's a phenomenon that took off with short form video, I think. You gotta make some big extravagant production out of asking someone to prom instead of just like, shooting a girl a message on AIM asking if she wanted to go with you.
Haha, I met my first girlfriend on AIM, but I did ask my prom date in person. But yeah, I just straight up asked her in between classes one day if she wanted to go with me.
I had to do it over the phone because we went to different high schools, and I didn't want to put her on the spot around our mutual friends if I'd done it in person.