Bryce Harper: Dugout Curse or Postseason Worst?

Bryce Harper has been the leading man in many Major League Baseball (MLB) championship games. Entering 53 postseason games in his career, he has slashed a .280 batting average with 54 hits, seventeen home runs, and 41 runs scored. Postseason records haven’t stood a chance against him in recent years, as he broke the home run record in a single season for the Phillies franchise. He is a powerhouse in championship games, and yet, there is no World Series ring on his finger. So why is Bryce Harper, the two-time MVP winner and eight-time All-Star, missing baseball's highest honour? Many MLB fans suggest that a curse has befallen the superstar athlete. 

In 2010, Harper made his career debut with the Washington Nationals. He promptly became a fan favourite, a ray of hope amidst the Washington Nationals’ gloomy history. Appearing in the postseason four times with the Nationals, he was electric, clubbing multiple home runs and salvaging losing games — he was still never able to win it all, though. “He just needs time,” people said. Time passed and World Series games came and went without Bryce Harper. He became impatient and desperate, throwing temper tantrums, fighting within his own club, and altogether giving up. Nevertheless, Nationals fans stuck by him, hoping he could channel this energy into winning their first World Series. 

The time never came; Harper left them in the dust he had stirred up. In one of the biggest betrayals in MLB history, Harper went to the Philadelphia Phillies, the Nationals’ rivals. He came to be known in Washington as ‘Benedict Harnold’, after the infamous Revolutionary War turncoat. But the Nationals were not in mourning for long — they went on to win the World Series the same year as Harper’s betrayal, which prompted the theory of his curse. 

Since joining the Phillies in 2019, Harper has been in the postseason three times, getting knocked out in each one. The sports headlines always promise a victory — that this is the year Bryce Harper finally wins his World Series ring, that this is the moment he’ll live up to the expectations — but it never comes. Instead, Harper continues to reinforce the rumour of his curse. This year, the Phillies were booted out of the NL Division after winning zero rounds. Harper needs to find a way to break this curse. I suggest kissing a frog, throwing a (non-World Series) ring into a volcano, or capturing and bringing back Cerberus. 

Illustration by Isabelle Holloway