Harper plays Strasburg’s game

You can relax, Stephen Strasburg. Bryce Harper wants to be your pal after all.

On Sunday, when super agent Scott Boras was still trying to hold up the Washington Nationals for ransom -- and uphold his nasty reputation as a cru-el dude -- on behalf of the teenage wunderkind from Las Vegas, Strasburg tossed a high, hard one Harper's way.

"If he doesn't want to play here, then we don't want him here," sniffed the Man with the Golden Arm.

While I never really understood the whole pot-calling-the-kettle-black idiom, Strasburg's commentary on Harper's situation might have been the definitive example of it.

Last year, when Strasburg was the No. 1 pick in the amateur draft, he didn't sign until about minute before a midnight deadline passed and Aug. 17 morphed into Aug. 18.

This is how it works. This is how Boras operates. Strasburg knew that. Boras was his adviser, too.

At the last moment, Washington was going to put its best offer and/or last nickels on the table, and Boras and Harper, the No. 1 pick in this year's draft, were going to take it/them.

The conclusion was foregone. Posture this, threaten that. These negotiations were more predictable than Will Ferrell stripping down to his underwear in the movies.

It was simply a matter of how many zeros would be on the bottom line when the clock struck midnight. For the record, there were five. Preceded by a 9, a comma and another 9. And a big, fat dollar sign.

Five years, $9.9 million.

Bryce Harper is a wealthy young man.

Scott Boras is a much wealthier older man, after skimming another five percent off the top.

Rocket science? Not this. It's not even quantum physics. Or new math. Or batting the pitcher eighth, like Tony La Russa. It's just a lot of money in return for a lot of potential to hit a baseball, although not quite as much as the $15.1 million, four-year deal Strasburg received a year ago for the potential to pitch one.

"We made some offers back and forth and finally got a deal done," Harper said about a deal that was completed with about 20 seconds to spare.

And Strasburg? "Strasburg's a great guy. He's been doing great things for the Nationals, and I can't wait to get up there and play with him."

Strasburg was 21 when he signed with Washington, with a college career at San Diego State under his belt. Harper is 17 and still taking out the trash at his parents' home. He's mature for his age, but in baseball, it has always been easier for a youngster to throw a pitch by somebody than to hit one into the bleachers. Unless, of course, Carlos Zambrano is pitching.

Harper was going to accept the Nationals' best offer regardless of what it was, because you don't leave that kind of money on the table when the only options are padding your batting average by swatting junior college curveballs into distant area codes and padding your grade-point average by signing up for Balance Your Checkbook 101 courses. Improve his status by re-entering the draft? How? By hitting a ball to Neptune?

It wasn't as if Harper was going to return to school to study zoology, which is what Danny Goodwin did in 1971 when he became the only No. 1 not to sign after being picked first by the White Sox.

You don't leave that kind of money on the table when Achilles' tendons and rotator cuffs and anterior cruciate ligaments remain so vulnerable, when you can get squashed like a bug while watching an off-road race. You don't leave money sitting there, because lightning still occasionally strikes, indiscriminately and independently of one one's ability to swat a baseball into the bleachers.

"I really preferred to play pro ball," said Harper, who batted .443 with 31 home runs and 98 RBIs in 66 games for the College of Southern Nevada this spring. "That's been my dream since I was 8, 9 years old.

"We had a great year at CSN. If I had to go back to CSN, I wouldn't have minded that."

That's his story, and he's sticking to it.

It must be a relief to Harper that, starting today, no longer must he allow grown-ups such as Boras to pull his strings. He can get back to what he does best -- what he knows best. He can get back to hitting baseballs in long, majestic arcs, and occasionally questioning an umpire's eyesight when he misses one on the outside corner.

In a year or two or three, he can introduce himself to Stephen Strasburg. Maybe they'll be friends and enjoy a laugh and a beer -- provided Harper is of legal age by then -- over ludicrous comments once made.

Maybe they'll figure out the whole pot-calling-the-kettle black idiom in such a way that a sports writer can understand it, too.

Maybe they'll do all this while throwing stones from the balconies of spectacular glass houses.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.