WATCH: Nationals fans booed Bryce Harper, who responded with an opposite field home run to lead another comeback win in DC
A bunch of shirtless morons in the right-field seats at Nationals Park spent Thursday night chanting “fuck Bryce Harper” at the top of their lungs like they were going to bully a two-time NL MVP into having a bad game against a team he’s been torturing since the day he left their poverty franchise in free agency seven years ago.
The man who sweated for the Washington Nationals for seven seasons, who was the first real superstar to ever put on their jersey, who carried their organization on his back from the day they drafted him first overall in 2010, stood in the batter’s box in the ninth inning of a tie game listening to the city that used to worship him chant profanities at him while Gus Varland tried to figure out how to get the most dangerous hitter in baseball out with the game on the line.
The Fightins: Bryce Harper crushes 9th inning home run, Phillies come back again vis Nationals >>
Varland left a thigh-high changeup over the plate because that’s what happens when you’re a Nationals reliever trying to pitch in a high-leverage moment against Bryce Harper while 30,000 people are screaming obscenities and the pressure of three consecutive blown leads is sitting on your shoulders like a cinder block.
Bryce Harper sent it the opposite way into the right-field seats for a two-run go-ahead homer, his 18th of the season, and then pointed his ring finger directly at the section that had been talking shit all night as he rounded first and again as he crossed home plate because Bryce Harper doesn’t just beat you but makes sure you know he heard every word you said and then uses your own energy against you in the most humiliating way possible.
Bryce Harper RING IT
“Obviously, everybody heard it,” Harper said afterward with the kind of grin that tells you he had been waiting for that exact at-bat since the chants started in the first inning. “I love playing here.”
Of course he loves playing here. Washington is where Harper goes to remind an entire franchise and its fanbase that they let a generational talent walk out the door because they didn’t want to pay him, and every time he comes back to Nationals Park and destroys their team in a big moment it’s another chapter in a revenge story that has been writing itself since the day he signed with the Phillies.
These Idiots Never Learn
You would think that after seven years of watching Harper come back to Washington and crush their souls on a semi-regular basis, Nationals fans would have figured out that heckling the man is the single worst strategy available to them.
You would think that after Tuesday’s eight-run ninth inning and Wednesday’s pinch-hit go-ahead homer on the final strike, the fans in the building Thursday night would have had the self-awareness to sit quietly and hope that the Phillies’ lineup forgot how to hit instead of actively poking the bear who had been mauling their team for three consecutive nights.
Instead they took their shirts off and chanted “fuck Bryce Harper” like it was going to change the outcome of a game that everyone in the stadium knew was trending toward another Nationals collapse because three straight blown leads against the same team in the same series creates a psychological weight that no amount of profanity from the upper deck is going to lift.
The chants didn’t rattle Harper because nothing rattles Harper in opposing stadiums since the man has been getting booed in every city he’s played in since he was a teenager and has spent his entire career converting hostile crowd energy into career highlights that make the people doing the booing look like absolute clowns.
Harper said “everywhere I go, I get booed, I love it, it’s all part of it” and then acknowledged that it’s “weird coming from a fan base that I sweated for for seven years,” which is the most restrained thing he could have possibly said about a fanbase that was chanting obscenities at a guy who gave them seven years of his prime, put up MVP-caliber numbers in their uniform, and helped make the Nationals relevant for the first time in their franchise’s miserable existence.
Those fans should be thanking Harper for the seven years he gave them instead of cursing his name from the upper deck, and the fact that they choose hostility over gratitude tells you everything about where that franchise and its fanbase are right now, which is a place of deep frustration and irrelevance while they watch the Phillies dominate them for the fifth consecutive season.
They Were Heckling Trea Turner Too and That’s Even Dumber
Harper mentioned that the fans were “doing the same thing to Trea” and added “which is crazy because they should probably know their history a little bit with him winning a World Series here,” which is the politest way to tell a fanbase that they’re booing a guy who literally won them a championship in 2019 and helped deliver the only title in the history of the Washington Nationals franchise.
Turner won a World Series in that stadium wearing that uniform and these people are cursing at him because he plays for Philadelphia now, which is the kind of short-sighted ungrateful behavior that explains why the Nationals can’t keep star players and why their fanbase keeps shrinking every year.
You booed the guy who won you your only ring and then you booed the guy who was the best player you ever drafted. Washington’s farewell tour for its former stars consists of profanity and shirtless guys in the upper deck and then the former stars respond by hitting go-ahead homers in the ninth inning to complete three consecutive comeback wins.
The Nationals fans are paying money to watch their team lose while cursing at the players who made their franchise relevant, which is such a spectacular waste of time and energy that it’s almost impressive in its commitment to self-destructive behavior.
The Nationals’ Season Is Imploding and They Did It to Themselves
Washington led 5-0 on Tuesday and lost 14-9 after the Phillies scored eight with two outs in the ninth. They led 4-3 on Wednesday and lost 5-4 after Hill hit a pinch-hit homer on the Phillies’ final strike. They led 5-0 again on Thursday and watched the lead evaporate before Harper put the dagger in during the ninth.
Three consecutive games where the Nationals held a late lead and three consecutive ninth-inning go-ahead homers from three different Phillies hitters in a series that has probably done irreparable psychological damage to a Washington team that earned legitimate goodwill over the first three months by competing harder than expected.
Whatever confidence the Nationals built from April through mid-June evaporated over three nights at their own stadium against a Phillies team that is 53-20 against Washington since July 2021 with a plus-155 run differential that tells you this matchup hasn’t been competitive for half a decade.
The Nationals aren’t a rivalry opponent for the Phillies anymore because rivalries require both teams to win occasionally, and Washington has been a scheduled series win for the Phillies since Harper left and took the franchise’s relevance with him.
Nationals outfielder Jacob Young said Harper’s celebration “wasn’t directed towards us” because the Washington players understood that the gesture was aimed at the fans who had been chanting obscenities all night rather than the opposing dugout, which is a remarkably self-aware response from a player on a team that just got bodied by the Phillies for the third consecutive night.
Young basically admitted that the Nationals’ own fans provoked the opposing team’s best hitter into having a signature moment and the players on the field had nothing to do with it because they were too busy watching their bullpen blow another lead to worry about what Harper was doing with his fingers on his trot around the bases.
The “Ring Finger” Quote
Nothing new here but when reporters asked Harper about the gesture toward the fans, he said he was showing them his ring finger, which is the perfect amount of plausible deniability wrapped in the confidence of a man who knows he can say whatever he wants because he just hit a go-ahead ninth-inning homer against his former team while their fans were cursing his name.
Bryce Harper Ring Finger
The “ring finger” answer is Harper at his absolute best because he’s simultaneously trolling the media, trolling the Nationals fans, and daring anyone to challenge his explanation while the go-ahead homer is still fresh enough that nobody has the standing to question anything he says or does.
Harper came back to Washington, heard the chants, waited for his moment, crushed a go-ahead homer in the ninth inning to complete the first three-game streak of ninth-inning go-ahead homers in MLB history, pointed at the fans who were cursing his name, and then told reporters he was showing them his ring finger with a grin that made it clear he knew exactly what he was doing and didn’t care who had a problem with it.
That’s the most Bryce Harper sequence of events imaginable and it’s exactly why this man is the franchise player of the Philadelphia Phillies and the greatest villain in baseball for every other fanbase in the National League.
Keep chanting his name, Washington. He loves it. He told you he loves it. And he keeps proving it every time he comes back to Nationals Park and buries your team in the late innings while you watch from the upper deck wondering how the franchise let this guy get away.
The Phillies took three of four from the Nationals with three consecutive ninth-inning go-ahead homers from three different hitters, and the last one came from the former number one overall pick pointing his ring finger at the fans who spent the entire night telling him to go fuck himself.
Bryce Harper heard every word and then answered with his bat and his finger and walked off the field knowing that Washington will never stop regretting the day they let him leave.
The Phillies are 45-36 with a 19-9 record since May 25 and Bryce Harper is having the time of his life destroying the Nationals every time the schedule brings him back to the city that couldn’t keep him.
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