Please make the Hall of Fame. For your sake, obviously, but for mine as well.
We often find ourselves rooting for athletes for different reasons. I’m rooting for you, Mr. Harvey, even though I’m a lifelong Phillies fan, and you pitch for the Mets. And I’m rooting for you despite our personal history.
It comes down to this:
1) I own you in one of my fantasy leagues — a keeper auction league, where I have you at $3. You have been a beast ever since you joined my squad. If you have a Hall of Fame career, that means you will help my fake baseball team win many, many games. If that ain’t a reason to root for someone, I don’t know what is.
2) You’re dating Anne V. Well done, Sir.
3) Your Mets are so enjoyably bad. Other than David Wright and Citi Field, you’re the only redeemable thing about the Diet Yankees. When you’re on the mound against anyone other than the Phils, I actually want to see Los Mets do well. You have no idea what kind of accomplishment that is. (Here’s a great Grantland article on you, and the Mets’ futility.)
4) You may not remember, but we went to college together. At UNC, you were a hotshot baseball player, and I was a sports columnist who would’ve been a hotshot baseball player had my four-seamer been just 30 mph faster.
One night — during my senior year, if memory serves — I was at one of the Chapel Hill bars typically frequented by student athletes. I saw this stunning blonde and had one of those, “I have to talk to her or I’ll regret it,” moments.
I don’t remember what we said, but I know it wasn’t long before you came over and interjected, quite poetically: “Step away, Bro.”
To which I responded, “Hey, Bro — we’re just talking. She’s allowed to talk to people, right?”
You didn’t find it very funny.
I reminded myself that practically the entire baseball team was with you, and how interesting and somewhat ironic it would’ve been had the front page in the following day’s paper read: “Et tu, Har-vey? Sports columnist hospitalized after bench-clearing bar brawl.” It wouldn’t have been good for either of us. So I walked away thinking (but not articulating), “Hit me with your pitching hand, break a couple metacarpals — see how that helps your career!”
For the health of your hand, and my jaw, I’m glad you didn’t. Looking back, I can see that you were just doing your power pitcher thing; in that bar, I was a hitter crowding the plate, and you threw a brush-back pitch to clear me off the inside corner. Now, when I watch you mowing down hitters with 95-mph gas, I know where it’s coming from. And I love it.
From a personal perspective: The more successful you become, the cooler my story becomes. So far, it’s gone from, “I once almost got my ass kicked by the UNC baseball team,” to, “I once argued over a girl with the guy who was just on the cover of Sports Illustrated and is dating Anne V.” If you make the Hall of Fame, perhaps one day I can take my (as yet non-existent) offspring to visit your plaque and be like, “See this guy, kids? If he hadn’t stepped in at that bar, I might never have met your mother!”
5) Because you deserve the success. You risked your pro career by turning down a seven-figure contract to attend college — a decision that took more guts than throwing a 3-2 breaking ball with the bases loaded. Every time you take the mound, you’ve got Empire State-sized pressure on your shoulders — it’s not easy being the Golden Boy — and yet you keep delivering.
With all my heart, I hope you win 250 career games, strike out 3,000 hitters, and claim yourself a spot in Cooperstown. Or, at the very least, bring my fantasy team a couple titles.
Pitch away, Bro. Pitch away.
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