Enmity is the downside to being one of the most famous and hyped baseball players in the world. I once asked Bryce Harper what it was like bearing the contempt and derision from those turned off by his renown.
“I love the way people talk crap,” he said. “I hear it all the time. ‘Overrated. You suck.’ I’ll just do something to shut them up. Like, ‘I’ll show you.’”
He was 16 years old at the time. Sixteen. A high school sophomore.
This world of his, a world of hyper-criticism that never allows the luxury of quietude, is the only world Harper ever has known.