Bryce Harper was greeted with a bunch of boo's at Nats Park STILL, and Grant thinks it's too much. Do you agree?
Category
đŸ¥‡
SportsTranscript
00:00But I want to go to our poll of the day.
00:03This is the Metropolitan Moving and Storage poll of the day.
00:07On Grant and Danny, we do it every single day on the fan.
00:11We're asking you, what do you make of the loud booing of Bryce Harper yesterday at Nats
00:15Park, seven years after he left DC for the Phillies?
00:19And this is actually way closer than I would have thought with the polling right now.
00:2356% of respondents are saying keep booing him.
00:27And 44% are saying it's getting tired.
00:30It's been seven years.
00:32So a couple of things need to be said.
00:34Number one, for those of you that weren't plugged in or paying attention or weren't
00:39at the ballpark, the booing of Bryce yesterday might have been the loudest that it's ever
00:43been.
00:44I was at the first game when he came back with Philadelphia.
00:47In 2019.
00:48To play Washington.
00:50It was the first week of the season.
00:51I don't think it was opening day.
00:53I think it was like a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday series, like right after that Scherzer
00:57was pitching that.
00:58I remember Scherzer against Harper.
00:59And what I remember most about that was I think Trey Turner broke his finger in that
01:04game.
01:05It was cold.
01:06He got hit by a pitch.
01:07It was like second or third game, fourth game of the season or something.
01:11I want to say maybe they went somewhere for a few days and then came back.
01:14Maybe all the details aren't right, but I know Turner breaks his finger on the day where
01:17Harper is there for the first time with the Phillies and he ended up hitting a home run
01:20against some donk like Jeremy Helixson in the bullpen.
01:23Actually, someone could look that up, but I think it was Helixson doesn't matter.
01:28He got booed loudly, but because it was a weeknight game in week one and it was cold,
01:32there were not 40,000 people in the stands.
01:34So even that night, I'm telling you, the booing for him was not as loud as it was yesterday.
01:39And if so fact, though, then I believe yesterday was the loudest he's ever been booed at Nationals
01:43Park because it was a sellout because there was 40,000 people because there haven't really
01:47been that all that many times since he left and have they opened with the Phillies on
01:53opening day?
01:54It used to be the Mets all the time.
01:56I remember that.
01:57Have they had the Phillies in town for an opening day?
01:59I don't think they have.
02:01Maybe at some point over the years.
02:02But so the game we're talking about Tuesday, April 2nd, they were in New York with the
02:05Mets and then Tuesday they had their home opener, which was Scherzer against the Phillies.
02:12They eventually lost that game eight to two.
02:14That's the one.
02:15Scherzer breaks his finger.
02:16Yeah.
02:17And there were 26,000 people there.
02:18Whatever.
02:19I mean, I remember getting tickets.
02:21It was raining, by the way.
02:22It was freezing miserable.
02:23Me and my mom went and there was nobody at the ballpark for a home opener.
02:26But anyway, the reason I'm bringing any of this up, Danny, I think there's a chance that
02:30yesterday because of the weather, because of the opening day, because it was sold out,
02:34because there was 40,000 people, probably the loudest he's been booed yet.
02:37It was just interesting to me that seven years later, the passion is not subsided.
02:42It has not waned and fans still hate his guts.
02:45Brings me to my next point.
02:49I'm not telling anybody how to fan, OK?
02:52Your fandom is your own.
02:53It's your prerogative.
02:54I'm just making an observation of something I don't understand.
02:59I don't get it this many years in.
03:01I never really got it from day one, but I can play along.
03:04He went to the evil empire.
03:07He's going to be the face of their franchise.
03:10Seven years later, for a guy that wanted to come back here and made more of an attempt
03:14to come back here than a lot of the heroes that we deify because they won a World Series.
03:21To be booed the way that he is every single game.
03:25Feels like such little brother syndrome and like almost this jealousy from our fan base
03:31that he's not here and he's there that it as a Nats fan, I'm like, yeah, this is just
03:38not a good look.
03:40I know I'm in the minority on this.
03:41I think most people love it.
03:43I will also say anybody being at Nats Park at this point in 2025, the year of our Lord
03:47was making any noise and who's engaged.
03:49I love you.
03:50We're pro that you're part of the solution.
03:52You're not part of the problem.
03:53So if your noise is billing, but you're at Nats Park, God bless you.
03:57You're one of the good ones.
03:58You're one of the people that came by yesterday when we were set up in the left field concourse
04:01and dapped us up.
04:02And as a Nats fan who listens and knows about Boston, lose baseball, our podcast, you are
04:07my guy or girl.
04:08I love you.
04:10But what I'm wanting to talk about here, Danny, and ask is this poll question.
04:14I brought it up to you today.
04:16I know we've always felt differently about this, you and I, but is there ever a point
04:21where he doesn't get booed the same way?
04:24It's been seven years.
04:26He's played here 20 times or more.
04:28I don't know.
04:29Probably actually more than that.
04:3040, 60, 70, 80.
04:31I don't know.
04:32He's homered in every single one of those games.
04:34Seems like after you guys booed him, which is even more embarrassing in a sense.
04:39Numbers approximate.
04:40But is it just perpetuity because he plays for the Phillies and left?
04:46Does anyone care about how it happened or the actual details?
04:48Does anyone remember any of them?
04:50So I don't know if it's a perpetuity or not.
04:52I've never understood how you've never gotten this.
04:55It's not that he left the he wanted to come back thing is the thing we've always disagreed
05:00about.
05:01So here's the Scott Boris public narrative version of that.
05:04Here's what happened.
05:05The nationals offered him a huge contract, whether you like the contract, didn't like
05:08the contract, whatever.
05:09Then they didn't hear from him for a month or two months.
05:12So here's what happened.
05:13You didn't hear from him for a month or two months.
05:14He did the Scott Boris playbook thing where he takes your offer and he leaves when he
05:19couldn't get another offer.
05:20And the nationals moved on signing Patrick Corbin in the interim.
05:24Nobody's out there offering him what he wanted.
05:26So then he said, Hey, is that offers?
05:28It's still good.
05:29Actually, no, we moved on because you didn't respond to us at all, but I really want to
05:33come back.
05:34And then he finally got what he wanted to with all these BS, no trade clauses and nothing
05:39to trade cause the, you can't, you can't leave clause or no flexibility just so we set the
05:43record and then claimed that he always wanted to be in Philadelphia, right?
05:47He had a public appearance, an article where he said, quote, what does that do for me?
05:51What does that do for my family in terms of a huge amount of money, hundreds of millions
05:55of dollars that he was offered?
05:56Again, he didn't like the way the deal was structured, which is just right.
05:59There's some details on that that are important.
06:01He was offered a contract that he should not have signed totally fine.
06:04It was a $300 million contract, which was well less than he got at a year where the
06:08market completely cratered and was down.
06:11So he actually ended up getting a little bit screwed anyway, compared to several years
06:15later here, wherever, you know, it's booming.
06:17He went into the housing market at a time when the housing market was down as it is
06:21and still did better with no deferments.
06:24The whole point of free agency was he was going to go look around.
06:28They told him to do it.
06:29They said, OK, you go look.
06:32Come back.
06:33Let's see.
06:34You.
06:35This is how free agency works.
06:36Right.
06:37Is you go see what's out there.
06:38He did.
06:39He saw that he could do better, but he was willing to stay here on a worse contract for
06:44less to stay in Washington, D.C. at 300 million with those deferments.
06:49And then the option wasn't there anymore.
06:51But my point is just like one Soto won a World Series here.
06:54Very different.
06:55My favorite player ever.
06:56I'm not running down one Soto.
06:58I told you this last week.
06:59I bought a one Soto jersey.
07:00I'll probably never buy another baseball jersey again.
07:02He's my favorite player in the sport and maybe my favorite player of all time.
07:07One Soto got a four hundred forty million dollar wrecking record breaking offer.
07:11Right.
07:12That was signable.
07:13Now he ended up several years later doing a lot better.
07:16You can make the case shouldn't have signed it.
07:18He never had one intention of staying here.
07:20Not one minute.
07:21Very clear behind the scenes.
07:22His agent made it very clear all along.
07:25It was always about getting the most money from whatever team.
07:27That was always the point.
07:28That was always the narrative with Bryce.
07:30It was not nearly as talked about behind the scenes.
07:34One of those two guys actually came back and tried to accept an offer for less than other
07:38teams were offering them and played for the Nationals.
07:40It's not one Soto.
07:42It's just weird to me.
07:43Again, he won a World Series and that is the difference between the two of those guys.
07:46I understand this, but they act like the Nationals offered Bryce Harper more money than the Phillies
07:54did to stay.
07:55He turned it down and said, I don't want to play for a loser.
07:58Went to Philadelphia and took a worse contract.
08:02That's not what happened.
08:03That's not the reality.
08:04You say, I believe the Boris side of it or whatever.
08:06I've talked to people on the Boris side.
08:08I've talked to people on the next side.
08:09I think I've got a really good understanding from both sides of what happened and piecing
08:13both sides together.
08:14Best I can come up with is a free agency period played out.
08:18Sure.
08:19And he did it this way, where the normal way, well, how the players do it.
08:24And which is you don't say anything for months to the team that offered you that has business
08:29to attend to.
08:30We have to fill out a roster when you decide what we're doing.
08:32We have an offer that's lingering out there.
08:33Would you like to counter it?
08:34You had November 7th, the 8th, the 9th, the 10th, all the way until the March of the following
08:40year when he finally signed with Philadelphia because the offers weren't coming in.
08:44That's when he came crawling back.
08:46He'd ran down.
08:47He'd publicly run down the offer.
08:49By the way, I said again, what does that do for my family has nothing to do with talking
08:52about deferred money in real time.
08:55Sure.
08:56What does that money do for my family?
08:57I'd say a lot that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
08:59His attitude about it rubbed people the wrong way.
09:01Then once the offers didn't come, then he came crawling back.
09:04I think that's the more that's the most important critical part here.
09:07The Nationals had correctly moved on.
09:09You can't wait around for somebody or whatever.
09:11We disagree a little bit on the the idea that there was no communication with Bryce Harper
09:16for months.
09:17I don't believe that that's what I remember.
09:18It was through his through his agent.
09:19And that's the Boris playbook.
09:20So you say it's normal.
09:22That's what's normal.
09:23Boris takes the offers and says, thank you.
09:24And people start panicking.
09:26They offer more.
09:27But I don't think to say that, like, for three months, there was no talking with Bryce Harper
09:32at all.
09:33That's not how I remember it.
09:34Well, what happened was he was offered in November.
09:39The Nationals kind of went, OK, well, we don't know what to do.
09:41So we're going to go.
09:42They're just going under all unanswered until January.
09:44Who knows?
09:45I don't know.
09:46I don't know who talked to whom exactly.
09:47What if you do?
09:48That's my point.
09:49You could share that.
09:50There were no counters, as far as we know, from from Boris and Harper.
09:54If you're interested in staying, you could counter.
09:56You could say, here's what I would like.
09:57Here's what I'm getting from somewhere else.
09:58I think that happened.
09:59I don't think it did.
10:00We probably found out about it.
10:02You don't think that the agent or the player said, this is what I'm looking for?
10:05No, because Scott Boris doesn't do that.
10:07He says, thank you.
10:08And takes the money.
10:09It takes the offer.
10:10One way for every player all the time.
10:11I don't think it's true.
10:13That's the standard playbook for his huge market guys.
10:15It's true.
10:16We said it was standard for a lot of people.
10:17Right.
10:18Even Strasburg, when he resigned for one hundred seventy five million, I think the player wanted
10:21something different.
10:22Yeah, exactly.
10:23Right.
10:24When you see what the player wants.
10:25Right.
10:26So what the price got, what he wanted, which was the most money ever, the most years.
10:28And that's that was what was important to him.
10:30So and then he pretended it was all about Philly.
10:32So when the offers weren't coming in and that's why I signed so late, by the way.
10:36So they weren't coming in.
10:37And so now all of a sudden he comes back.
10:38Hey, I want to be part of the Nationals before he finally got his Philadelphia offer.
10:41So this idea of he wanted to be wanted to be here, he had a very funny way of showing
10:45it for months before the offers that he thought would be there didn't come in.
10:49So there's another question, though, of how seriously did they want him back?
10:53It's a very fair question.
10:54And I think you and I both know that there's some debate about that, 100 percent based
10:59on a lot of the people that we talked to at that time that were hiring.
11:02Absolutely.
11:03So their their initial offer was just that, as far as I can tell, an initial offer.
11:07If you if you're really interested, you wouldn't you could negotiate that.
11:10That wasn't what happened.
11:11They took it left, shopped it on the open market, used it as as the as a beginning point
11:15for everybody else.
11:16That's what this is, how it works.
11:17The whole sure.
11:18Manny Machado signed at the same time, the 300 million dollar contract he got from San
11:22Diego.
11:23That was the market.
11:24You're acting like he signed nine months after everybody else or whatever.
11:27That's when all the business was getting done that year.
11:28I don't remember the specifics of why if there was a I don't know if that was the work stoppage
11:32year or it wasn't specifically, but it was it was a late start.
11:35I remember that.
11:36And every you know, Manny Machado, Bryce Harper, all those guys were signing late.
11:40The point is, that's when the negotiating was happening.
11:42That's when he comes back now to negotiate and they go, we're good things.
11:45Yeah, which is fine.
11:46We signed Patrick.
11:47By the way, I didn't have any problem with moving on.
11:49My point is, it is just odd to me, the animus toward a guy who dragged this organization
11:56with a couple of other guys into a different era, into a different respectability, who
12:01made it fun to be a Nationals fan for years, who gave unbelievable memories year after
12:06year after year.
12:07The home run derby at Nats Park, probably a top 10 sporting event for me when he won
12:11the home run derby, wearing the D.C. stuff on his head, the American flag, but I think
12:15he's wearing a fanatic thing on his head because he's always been Mr. Philly.
12:19Very weird as well.
12:20She sticks to the bells.
12:21If somebody were to say to me, I don't like Bryce Harper because he's a phony who pretends
12:26like he loves Philadelphia so much now.
12:30I would understand that when I'm kind of asking, where does the hatred come from?
12:35Is it just because he plays for the Phillies?
12:37Is it just because I had a couple of beers and people were booing and I thought it'd
12:40be fun?
12:41I guess I'm just wondering why, and you're giving me your answer, which is you feel personally
12:45slighted by how he handled free agents.
12:48That process played out where he thought all these huge offers were coming, that it was
12:52going to be this feeding frenzy.
12:54It didn't happen.
12:55He spent time running it down.
12:58They're leaking word out that it wasn't good.
13:00That's not what you do.
13:01That's not very classic.
13:02He talked to Barry Spiluga once and gave an answer to a question that he didn't like.
13:07It wasn't like he was putting up billboards in DC to say he told ESPN the magazine and
13:10so like then it wasn't for Luke.
13:12But there.
13:13But the point is they're also through Boris and whoever else.
13:16If you had a lot of interest in staying, you could do something about it at any time.
13:19There could have been a lot more negotiating and there wasn't.
13:21What he did was took their offer, said thanks very much, went out and shopped himself around.
13:26Things didn't come back.
13:27He ran.
13:28He ran the offer down and then pretended to be Mr. Philadelphia all along to me.
13:32And again, we're just disagreeing on this.
13:34I'm not saying I'm right.
13:35Everything's fine.
13:36You're explaining free agency in the business of sports and what you're taking it personally,
13:40which and maybe that's the answer.
13:42And I get that.
13:43But it can take stuff personally when guys leave.
13:46But when you become if you wait seven years to get a chance to go to a market, oftentimes
13:53the way you get the most possible money is to hit the market.
13:56If you just stay at the fan in perpetuity, I know you're not going to believe this, Danny,
14:00but you're probably not going to get big raises.
14:02But if you actually have a market and you can go out there and shop around, even if
14:05you want to stay with the fan, you go figure out what you're worth.
14:07I understand.
14:08But you're conflating free agency.
14:10What Anthony Rendon did with what Bryce Harper did.
14:13Like it's not just this standard thing.
14:14I just want to know he wants another team.
14:16Well, if you do it from a 30,000 foot view and go, he wants another team.
14:19OK, that's fine.
14:20Lots of guys have left.
14:21Lots of guys will leave again.
14:23Sure.
14:24It's this idea that they go, here's a pretty sizable offer, whether you like it or not.
14:29You think you could poke holes in it.
14:30That's fine.
14:31Do you want to begin this process?
14:32And he didn't ran it down in public, leaked out a bunch of things through various sources
14:37that it wasn't good.
14:38And this this is way below what we need.
14:41Used it as a jumping point.
14:42Didn't get the offer that he wanted.
14:44Came crawling back.
14:45Then pretended to be Mr. Philadelphia.
14:46That's not just leaving a free agency.
14:48Guys leaving free agency all the time and more relief.
14:50I would say that's like the I got hurt version of it.
14:53My version of it would be he got this offer.
14:57As the floor offer of worst case scenario, I can accept this.
15:02Let me see what's out there.
15:03They say, OK, like they do with every player and free agency every single time.
15:07The market that year, as we've both agreed, whatever was weird, it was weird.
15:11It took months to start.
15:13So there was there was no he can't come back six weeks later when the market hasn't started
15:18yet for the players of his caliber to tell you what he it's not we're not there yet.
15:22So when he found out what he was worth and he had offers from other teams in hand, he
15:27said, you know what?
15:28I'm going to do better financially in Philly and in these other places.
15:31I'll come back to Washington for less money with this stupid contract with the deferred
15:35money and I'll take it.
15:37And then.
15:39It's not there, by the way, the Nats would win a World Series the next year.
15:43I think they probably did the right thing, honestly, than the contract that he got from
15:47Philadelphia.
15:48But two ways to view the same thing.
15:51I just think it and maybe that's the answer.
15:53Maybe people felt personally slighted the first time he came back.
15:58I get it.
15:59He's a Philadelphia Philly.
16:00It's going to be crazy.
16:01Even then would have probably not been one of the ones booing.
16:06But sure.
16:07Seven years later, the guys had so many great moments and turned into a player every bit
16:11as good as he was ever supposed to.
16:13No one should be able to live up to the hype of being on it.
16:15He's done it, man.
16:16When you're 16 years old and he's done it.
16:18And every at bat in 2025, it is still like the guy kicked you in the stomach and stole
16:24your girlfriend.
16:26He was so important and did so much good here.
16:30It's always like it'll always be like this.
16:32There's never going to be that.
16:33I don't know.
16:34I don't know.
16:35I don't know if that burns less bright at some point.
16:36Thanks for 2012 through 20.
16:38That's not happening at any.
16:39I don't that.
16:40I don't know.
16:41I don't know.
16:42The answer is now.
16:43I think he's a phony who doesn't love Philadelphia as much as he likes.
16:45I shouldn't call him a phony.
16:46That's not nice.
16:47But he he acts like a phony with his favorite food is cheesesteak.
16:50His favorite song is the Fresh Prince, whatever.
16:52Whatever way the wind blows.
16:53He loves Will Smith.
16:54He only watches Rocky, you know, whatever.
16:57He's a human hashtag.
16:58He's always been that way.
16:59He's always sat in the press box wearing a Vegas Golden Knights gear, Cowboys fan, Vegas
17:02fan, whatever.
17:03You know, come on.
17:04So I understand if you just say he rubbed me the wrong way, whatever.
17:08But it's just crazy to me that the loudest he's ever been booed maybe at Nats Park was
17:13yesterday in 2025.
17:16When does that end?
17:17Maybe that's my question.
17:18So that I don't know.
17:19To me, it's not crazy.
17:20Yesterday, because again, it's the the, you know, jersey pop and chinstrap, beard, double
17:25earring, you know, what did you call the guy that was sitting near us?
17:29The dude who has the haircut that they have on the board at the barbershop, whatever that
17:33was.
17:34So that guy stands up and is like, yeah, Bryce, son.
17:38So you're not only booing Bryce, but you're booing that guy because he turned into his
17:42favorite son.
17:43I'm talking about, which is like there is this like jealousy that they have them then.
17:47No, it's because that guy's annoying and he's cheering for Bryce.
17:49You're trying to get the next batter.
17:51No, because it's not the same level of understood.
17:53So the.
17:54Yeah.
17:55So when when Matt Harvey's down here, I don't know, Matt Harvey, if anybody years ago in
17:59the seven train army, whatever those horses asses were, came down, they start cheering.
18:02Well, the boos are allowed to drown them out.
18:04You know what I mean?
18:05So like when people are doing the let's go match, let's go Eagles chance yesterday or
18:08let's go Phillies.
18:09And I thought that's when the booing happened.
18:10It's pretty clear the booing when Bryce Harper is getting booted for Bryce Harper.
18:13Sure.
18:14So it starts.
18:15We start to Bryce Harper.
18:16Then they're cheering.
18:17And then the booing goes to drown them out.
18:18So that's why yesterday it was last possible.
18:20That's right.
18:21Six, three, six, one, six, seven.
18:22I want to hear from you guys on this eight hundred six, three, six, one, six, seven.
18:26Do you think the poll of the day, seven years, eight years later, wherever we are now, the
18:31what do you think of the booing of Bryce Harper?
18:34Keep it up.
18:35Let it go forever.
18:36Never change.
18:37Or is it we've done it.
18:39We've kind of made our point.
18:41It's getting a little tired now.
18:42And the next question would be, is there ever going to be a moment where it's not happening?