Bryce Harper does not forget. Washington Nationals fans gave him a vulgar “F Bryce Harper” chant on Thursday night. Harper responded with a go-ahead home run and a one-finger salute as he rounded first base.
The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Nationals 10-5 in the series finale. Harper’s two-run blast was the difference maker. The celebration on the trot is what is going viral.
Harper later clarified what finger he raised, sort of. “Ring finger, though,” he told reporters after the game. “Make sure that’s out there.”
That is the kind of post game quote that only Harper can pull off. He used to be the franchise face in Washington. Now he is the visiting villain, and he loves every second of it. The crowd hates him, he hits a homer, he gives them a finger, and then he tells reporters it was actually a celebration about championships. Pure Bryce.
The Phillies have been using a ring finger celebration as an aspirational gesture all season. They have not won a World Series with this core. The finger is supposed to remind teammates what they are playing for. Harper just turned it into a perfect troll job for an old fanbase that still cannot let go.
Nationals fans have every right to be salty. Harper left them after the 2018 season for a 13-year, $330 million deal with the Phillies. The Nationals won a World Series the very next year without him, which felt like cosmic justice at the time. Then they fell apart, traded everyone, and watched Harper become a perennial MVP candidate up I-95.
The chants are not new. They show up every time the Phillies come to Nationals Park. What is new is the level of confidence Harper plays with when he is in DC. He is 33, he is in the back half of his prime, and he plays his best baseball with a crowd booing him.
Harper has eight homers in his last 24 games. The Phillies sit on top of the NL East. The Nationals are 14 games under .500. The script has flipped completely, and the only people who do not seem to understand that are the fans in Washington who keep showing up to chant at him.
Major League Baseball is not going to like this. Expect a fine for the gesture. Harper will pay it without complaint. Some things are worth the cost.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
