Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball by John Feinstein Page B
Authors: John Feinstein
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believed Harper
was
ready for the majors. Mike Rizzo, the general manager, wanted to go more slowly. That’s the way it usually is: managers, who are judged year to year, want the most talented players on the team right away. GMs, who are given a longer rope and take a longer view, tend to be more patient.
“I think I was a lot calmer in the spring than I had been the year before,” Harper said. “I wanted to try to make it impossible for them to send me down, but I was okay with it happening when it did. Davey told me they wanted me to play some games down there in center field because they might need me to do that when I came back up. My attitude was, ‘Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.’
“If I needed 250 at-bats down there, so be it. If it was 25, that was fine too.”
The Nationals weren’t going to just send Harper down to Syracuseand hope everything turned out well there. Triple-A clubhouses are filled with veterans, many in their thirties, many making $12,000 a month and hanging on for dear life. A team didn’t just let a nineteen-year-old who had signed for $17.9 million wander in there unprotected. Syracuse manager Tony Beasley assigned two veterans, Jason Michaels and Mark Teahen, both of whom had major-league experience, to “mentor” Harper—which meant keeping an eye on him.
“It wasn’t like the kid needed to be watched or anything; he isn’t that kind of kid,” Beasley said. “But he was still learning. Michaels and Teahen are both guys who know the right way to do things and who would be a positive influence on him.”
That didn’t mean Harper didn’t struggle to find himself in Syracuse. With the
Washington Post
running a daily “Harper watch” that reported on how he was doing game to game, he struggled at the plate and didn’t appear comfortable at the Triple-A level. John Lannan, who by this point had been sent down and had arrived in Syracuse not long after Harper and was dealing with his own issues, felt as if he knew exactly what was wrong with Harper.
“He’s built for the big stage,” Lannan said. “That’s just who he is. He wasn’t going to do well playing in front of twenty people in forty-degree weather in April in Syracuse or in the snow in Buffalo. I understood what he was feeling because I was feeling some of it myself.
“You get used to the feel of a major-league park—the big crowds, the atmosphere, the noise. Early in the season, especially up north, you feel like you can hear people when they sneeze in the stands. I know Bryce hadn’t been in the majors, but that’s what he was born to do. He wasn’t meant to be in Triple-A. He’s got too much star quality for that.”
Rizzo came to Syracuse to check on Harper’s progress and, even though the numbers weren’t great, liked what he was seeing. And so, when two of the Nationals’ better offensive players, Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse, went on the disabled list, Rizzo decided Harper was the best option available to bring up. On April 27, the agate around the country said very simply, “Washington Nationals recalled outfielder Bryce Harper.”
Most players get emotional when they are first called up and can remember almost word for word how they found out they were being sent to the majors. Harper talks about it as if describing how he ordered breakfast.
“Tony called me in and said, ‘The team is in California, you’ve got a flight in an hour,’ ” Harper remembered. He smiled. “He also said, ‘You might be back.’ I understood what he was saying, that I was going up because guys were hurt, but to me that was just a challenge. I knew I had to go up and prove that I belonged.”
Often when a player is called up to the majors for the first time, his teammates give him a send-off in the clubhouse—nothing formal, just everyone gathering around to offer congratulations. At some point, someone almost inevitably says, “Don’t come back.” But often as not, players do come
was
ready for the majors. Mike Rizzo, the general manager, wanted to go more slowly. That’s the way it usually is: managers, who are judged year to year, want the most talented players on the team right away. GMs, who are given a longer rope and take a longer view, tend to be more patient.
“I think I was a lot calmer in the spring than I had been the year before,” Harper said. “I wanted to try to make it impossible for them to send me down, but I was okay with it happening when it did. Davey told me they wanted me to play some games down there in center field because they might need me to do that when I came back up. My attitude was, ‘Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.’
“If I needed 250 at-bats down there, so be it. If it was 25, that was fine too.”
The Nationals weren’t going to just send Harper down to Syracuseand hope everything turned out well there. Triple-A clubhouses are filled with veterans, many in their thirties, many making $12,000 a month and hanging on for dear life. A team didn’t just let a nineteen-year-old who had signed for $17.9 million wander in there unprotected. Syracuse manager Tony Beasley assigned two veterans, Jason Michaels and Mark Teahen, both of whom had major-league experience, to “mentor” Harper—which meant keeping an eye on him.
“It wasn’t like the kid needed to be watched or anything; he isn’t that kind of kid,” Beasley said. “But he was still learning. Michaels and Teahen are both guys who know the right way to do things and who would be a positive influence on him.”
That didn’t mean Harper didn’t struggle to find himself in Syracuse. With the
Washington Post
running a daily “Harper watch” that reported on how he was doing game to game, he struggled at the plate and didn’t appear comfortable at the Triple-A level. John Lannan, who by this point had been sent down and had arrived in Syracuse not long after Harper and was dealing with his own issues, felt as if he knew exactly what was wrong with Harper.
“He’s built for the big stage,” Lannan said. “That’s just who he is. He wasn’t going to do well playing in front of twenty people in forty-degree weather in April in Syracuse or in the snow in Buffalo. I understood what he was feeling because I was feeling some of it myself.
“You get used to the feel of a major-league park—the big crowds, the atmosphere, the noise. Early in the season, especially up north, you feel like you can hear people when they sneeze in the stands. I know Bryce hadn’t been in the majors, but that’s what he was born to do. He wasn’t meant to be in Triple-A. He’s got too much star quality for that.”
Rizzo came to Syracuse to check on Harper’s progress and, even though the numbers weren’t great, liked what he was seeing. And so, when two of the Nationals’ better offensive players, Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse, went on the disabled list, Rizzo decided Harper was the best option available to bring up. On April 27, the agate around the country said very simply, “Washington Nationals recalled outfielder Bryce Harper.”
Most players get emotional when they are first called up and can remember almost word for word how they found out they were being sent to the majors. Harper talks about it as if describing how he ordered breakfast.
“Tony called me in and said, ‘The team is in California, you’ve got a flight in an hour,’ ” Harper remembered. He smiled. “He also said, ‘You might be back.’ I understood what he was saying, that I was going up because guys were hurt, but to me that was just a challenge. I knew I had to go up and prove that I belonged.”
Often when a player is called up to the majors for the first time, his teammates give him a send-off in the clubhouse—nothing formal, just everyone gathering around to offer congratulations. At some point, someone almost inevitably says, “Don’t come back.” But often as not, players do come
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