It was always him and his dad. That’s how Bryce Harper remembers it. He would wait for Ron Harper to come home from his shift as an ironworker, a 5-year-old bundle of energy pleading for a pitcher.
Out they would head, either into the family garage or to one of the dusty Las Vegas diamonds near their home. “I’d just swing and try to hit the ball as hard as I could,” the son recalled.
One day when Bryce was 10, another of the batting sessions he never tired of had just ended. He turned to his father and told him if he ever made the Home Run Derby, he wanted him to pitch.
Monday night, they stood about 50 feet apart in the middle of a packed major league stadium. Behind a screen in front of Citi Field’s mound was Ron, decked out in an orange National League jersey — No. 3, his old high school number. At the plate was Bryce, who had grown up and become a 20-year-old Washington Nationals superstar. The son had made it to the Home Run Derby, and his dad had come to pitch to him.
