The day finally arrived, and with it, all the seismic punch we thought it might carry. Bryce Harper, prodigious talent and forever the Phillies’ nemesis in the NL East, changed his stripes and agreed to a sport-rocking 13-year, $330 million deal Thursday. We’ll feel the effects of this day for a long, long time, and I’m not just talking about that “13,” either.
Harper is a baseball prodigy, bred to play this sport (and play it well) basically from the day he was born. He hit homers out of Tropicana Field with an aluminum bat at age 16.