Bryce Harper Thrives Inside the Philadelphia Pressure Cooker

Another road game meant another crowd to jeer Bryce Harper, this time in Colorado. Parents with young children in tow shouted at him and his team. Such is the perverse respect, with its unspoken lining of fear, that fans weaponize against the best player on the best team in the nervousness of the last inning of a one-run game.Harper disappointed them. He led his team to victory. It felt so good and so overwhelming in the face of hostility that he broke down and cried.He was 11 years old.“There was a runner on second from the guy that was trying to close it out and they brought me in to pitch,” Harper says. “I got like a pop-up and a punchout and a groundout or something. I remember crying after the game because the pressure and the emotion was so high that it kind of all came out. The parents and everybody were screaming and yelling.“The crying might sound bad, but it wasn’t bad. It was just the release of the emotion of playing. I’m really thankful that I had those opportunities to go...