If you didn’t know he was talking about the White Sox, you would think he was talking about the Phillies. So I met with them and I was like ‘Yeah that was a great meeting.'” “And I was like ‘Man, these people are going to show up because they are blue-collar and they want to see their freakin’ team win again.’ When they were winning back in the day, that place was sold-out completely. It’s tempting to wonder if Hoskins had put up his 2019 numbers in 2018 if Harper would have signed with the Phillies. This also tells us that Rhys Hoskins was a big selling point for the Harper signing, possibly bigger than the acquisition of his favorite player J.T. So that was a big thing as well.” Embed from Getty Images But he’s a very good guy to hit behind me. 280 every year with 25 (home runs) quietly and nobody really talks about it. They got (Lucas) Giolito…They had a lot of good guys and I was like ‘Who is going to hit behind me?’ And I was like ‘Oh shoot, big ole’ first baseman (José Abreu).’ That’s huge for me because he goes about his business, hits. “It was kind of like ‘Man, they can be a good team.’ They’ve got a lot of good arms. “I loved that blue-collar feel on the south side of Chicago,” Harper said. “The South Siders” piqued his interest from the get-go. The then 26-year-old left the first meeting not seeing the fit between the two sides. There may have been some truth to the rumors that said he did not want to play in Philadelphia. Harper admitted he was not initially enamored with the Phillies. The Chicago White Sox Could Have Beaten Out The Phillies For Harper’s Signature The hate they feel for every other team? I love it. You saw it with the Super Bowl and the Eagles…Philly is the city of underdogs. I mean, you saw it when they won in ’08 and when they were good in ’09. I love the pure emotion the fans and the Philadelphians feel and let out.

And for me personally, this is no disrespect to D.C. That was scary to me because all I knew was one place for seven years of my career. “When I was going through it, I was like ‘What city can do that for me?’ and I was like ‘Philly.’ Not even close. His feelings on Philadelphia stem from the way he grew up and you can get a sense of that by listening to him speak. It’s powerful to hear that coming from Harper, especially as someone who came from a similar upbringing. And I’m going to work my freakin’ tail off to do that.” And if I can make them happy that Saturday or Sunday, that’s what I’m going to do. They are the working-class city and they are grinding every single day to get by. I want to play 158 to 162 (games) because those fans worked through their whole week to buy a ticket for a Saturday day game and if I’m not playing, that’s a slap in the face to them. “That’s what fuels me going out there every single day. I understand what they’re going through because my dad did it every damn day. So when I was going into a city, I knew what these people went through. I saw them do everything every single day to provide for me and my sister and brother. That’s instilled in me because I saw my family do that. “And I knew, that’s what I had to do,” Harper told Jared Carrabis and Dallas Braden. As he got older, he realized his parents went into debt to help him pursue his dream of playing in the big leagues. He grew up in a lower-middle class family and watched his dad work 10 hour days in the sweltering heat only to pick his son up from school and take him to practice. Harper spoke extensively about his upbringing. The interview completely changed my perspective. I brushed off some of what Harper said as pandering. At first, I was very skeptical about whether or not he was genuine in what he meant. Harper’s Love For Philadelphia Isn’t Lip Serviceįrom the beginning of his Phillies tenure, it was apparent that Harper was enamored with the blue-collar feel of Philadelphia. It may be a good idea to delve deeper into what he said and take five important things we’ve learned about the Phillies star slugger. A lot of what he said in that interview has circulated around the internet, including his bold idea to send MLB players to the Olympics. There is so much to digest from the interview. According to Harper, he was not enamored with the idea of signing with the Phillies from the get-go.

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