Nickname hit with Nationals
Bryce Harper sheepishly emerged from the trainers’ room in the Washington Nationals’ clubhouse late Friday night, a golf ball-size welt and 10 stitches over his left eye, clumps of blood in his hair and a new nickname from his teammates. After Harper had suffered a bizarre, frustration-fueled, self-inflicted injury, they fondly called him “Bam Bam.”
After the Nationals’ 7-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park, attention shifted from their encouraging offensive performance to how blood came to streak down Harper’s face as he stood in right field in the late innings.
Harper went 0 for 5 with 3 strikeouts. In his fourth at-bat, in the seventh inning, he grounded out to second base off Reds reliever Jose Arredondo. Back in the dugout, Harper took his bat down the tunnel that leads to the clubhouse and took out his frustration with a fierce swing against the wall.
The bat bounced off the wall and drilled Harper above his left eye, immediately drawing copious blood.
“I just got caught up in the moment,” Harper said. “I want to do so well. It just got me.”
No teammates asked what happened because they knew, either from the sound or from personal experience, what had happened.
“I didn’t think much about it,” Manager Davey Johnson said. “We put a Band-aid on it, one of those butterflies. That’s what ballplayers do — break bats, throw helmets. That’s not anything new.”
“I guess I won’t do it anymore, but I don’t know,” Harper said. “I’ve done it a million times. It’s just a heat-of-the-moment kind of thing. It came back and got me.”
After the game, his teammates celebrated their victory and Harper had to find ice for his odd injury.
“It doesn’t hurt at all,” Harper said. “I feel fine. I didn’t get lightheaded at all or nothing. I feel good.”