Bryce Harper sat down with a crazy old man today to discuss the upcoming Phillies season and his experience so far in Philadelphia. Harper continues to say all the right things and has the city of Philadelphia hyped for baseball season already. Spring Training is currently taking place in Clearwater, even if you haven’t seen much on TV.

Just yesterday Harper hit 2 home runs. The game of course, was not televised. We did however, obtain some video evidence via the Phillies Twitter:

Video Evidence: pic.twitter.com/1FGPSLpSs1

— The Liberty Line (@LibertyLinePHL) March 4, 2020

I would like to credit for Bryce taking the time today to face the enemies of in Philadelphia Sports Media (WIP) today face to face. As expected, he handled it with absolute maturity and class. Here’s some notable quotes from this morning:

“My dad and my family always held me accountable growing up, they always wanted me to work hard and do everything I could to be a good person, a good baseball player and that’s what I want to do for this city. I want to go out there and be the best baseball player I can be each night and I want to run hard, I want to play hard, and I want to run through a wall for this city.”

Assuming you haven’t thrown your phone across the room or flipped the table in front of you in pure excitement, there’s more:

“Every single time I went out there they held me accountable, 0 for 4, 4 for 4. But also, they were there for me as well. It’s not like they just hammered me, hammered me, hammered me. And they didn’t, they really didn’t. They were there for me as well. If I did go 0 for 4, of course I had a couple boos, but there were there for me as well. And they were pulling me and doing everything they could to help, it’s a lot of fun. Going through free-agency a lot of people are scared to play in Philly because they hear about the fan base or hear about the city, but I wasn’t. I was so excited. I played there as a visitor my first seven or eight years in the big leagues and I loved every minute going in there. Every time I went in Citizens Bank I was excited to go in there and play. You look at the fan base, they love the Eagles, they love the Flyers, they love the Sixers and that’s the Phillies as well. We have a great fan base and I’m very excited to be a part of this for a long time.”

Holy shit.

“Yeah—hold on, let me go back,” Harper said, cutting himself off. “I don’t want it to be easy. I really want it to be a grind every day. I want to do everything I can to help bring this city a championship, on the baseball field of course. I want to grind and do everything I can each day to help this team win, but also I want it to be easy on the family side. 

Bryce Harper is a Philadelphia legend. Definitely expecting MVP numbers this year. A lineup with Bryce, JT Realmuto, Rhys Hoskins, and Scott Kingery should provide an offensive hit parade.

Of course, the lack of Spring Training Coverage is absurd. But there is light at the end of the tunnel:

We’re only 3 weeks away from opening the 2020 season in Miami.