The MLB London Series has produced various viral moments, but one historical moment ahead of Sunday’s game between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets may have them all beat.
Actor Rob McElhenney, best known for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, was poised to throw the first pitch before the game on Sunday. He stepped out onto the field at London Stadium sporting a Phillies jersey, ready to throw the pitch to former Phillies World Series champion Chase Utley. However, McElhenney’s wife Kaitlin Olson ran onto the field and changed the course of the pitch.
Apparently McElhenney couldn’t decide between throwing the first pitch to Utley or Phillies star Bryce Harper, so he decided to include them both.
Olson rolled the ball to McElhenney, who was playing as shortstop, who then threw to the former second baseman Utley, who then threw to Harper at first base. McElhenney invented the first “double play” before a game.
Check out the awesome moment here.
Rob McElhenney just couldn’t choose between Bryce Harper and Chase Utley to catch his first pitch … so he turned a double play with them instead 😂#LondonSeriespic.twitter.com/F3zcFAQyWn
Harper, who walked the streets of London by day, is now hitting home runs by night during game action against the New York Mets on Saturday, as the Phillies slugger belted a game-tying solo home run during the top of the fourth inning, a frame that saw Philadelphia break the game open with a six-spot.
Then, to put a cherry on top of the home run, Harper, in an ode to soccer fans across London and the United Kingdom, perfectly hit a soccer celebration right in front of the Phillies' dugout.
Perfect form by Harper. The Phillies star is seeing the ball just as well across the pond as he did in the United States, as he reached base in his first three at-bats with a single, double and the solo shot.
Harper and the Phillies held a 6-1 lead over the Mets after four innings.
Bryce Harper endured a difficult first at-bat of Wednesday's game against the San Francisco Giants, striking out swinging to Kyle Harrison in six pitches.
It certainly wasn't the result Harper was looking for as he aimed to provide an early spark for the Philadelphia Phillies in the first inning, and he was irate upon returning to the dugout.
When Harper got back to the Phillies' dugout, the 31-year-old unleashed his fury on his bat, smashing it to bits by repeatedly slamming it against the bench. Shrapnel from Harper's bat could be seen flying around the dugout as he vented his frustrations on the very same bat he'd just failed to produce a hit with.
Harper struck out again in his second at-bat of the game. And when he came up for a third time, tensions flared between the two teams.
Harrison threw two pitches up and in on Harper, one of which clunked off the knob of his bat, prompting some rage from Philadelphia's dugout. Benches cleared as the two teams barked at one another before things eventually settled down.
The benches clear in San Francisco after two straight pitches are thrown near Bryce Harper. pic.twitter.com/rdBkdwPx8D
LONDON –– Fifteen years to the day from the publication of what became an iconic SI cover, Bryce Harper met up with me again, just as we did in Las Vegas when he was a 16-year-old kid with major league bat speed. This time we were 5,200 miles away from his hometown, or one-fifth the circumference of the earth, on a converted soccer pitch in London. We stood alone in a hallway between the Philadelphia Phillies’ dugout and their clubhouse.
Like a Broadway show or a rock band tour, Harper and the Phillies had just brought their tried-and-true act across the pond, as if it is similarly scripted. There is a familiar songbook feel to the Phillies, the best team in baseball. They beat the New York Mets, 7–2, with great starting pitching, a ridiculously deep shutdown bullpen and the usual basketful of runs that required a second hand to count. There is no stopping this team—not even traversing 18 time zones in 17 days, as the Phillies will have done by the time they land in Boston around 10 p.m. Sunday.
Harper is their headliner, the leader the team draws its ferocity and confidence from. He also showed in the opener of the London Series that he gives more than that. Harper has the “it” factor when it comes to big moments, a trait he had even at 16 when everybody in amateur baseball knew his name.
About three hours before the game, Harper dragged himself into the Phillies’ clubhouse as if he had just awoken, head bowed, headphones on, vintage cream-colored World Series baseball cap pulled low. He was wearing a plaid shacket, gray chinos and white sneakers.
“Tired,” he told me. “Just tired. When you cross however many time zones we have, it catches up to you.”
And then the lights went on.
When they did, baseball’s Mick Jagger took the stage full of intent. It was showtime. He brought to the plate a custom-painted bat with the Philly Phanatic wearing one of those bearskin hats worn by the guards at Buckingham Palace. With his apropos prop, Harper’s first three at-bats in the U.K. went like this:
Double hit 103.2 mph. Home run hit 107.2 mph. Single hit 109.8 mph.
It was only the ninth time in his career Harper crushed three hits that hard in the same game. London calling? Harper answered. That’s showmanship.
The hits weren’t even the best part. Upon his homer in the fourth inning off Mets lefthander Sean Manaea, Harper threw himself into a Premier League-quality, goal-celebrating slide on his knees as he neared the Philadelphia dugout, his hands thrown up in jubilation, and shouted, “I love soccer!” On a baseball field literally placed atop the natural home turf of West Ham United, Harper found the perfect way to connect the U.S. with the U.K.: the slide heard ‘round the world.
He told me he was on the training table before the game, awakening his body, when his mind conjured this gloriously fun piece of showmanship. Of course, he still had to hit a baseball bloody hard and far for the full house to get a chance to see it, which of course he did.
Fifteen years ago when I wrote about Harper, I was astonished by his bat speed and blown away by his confidence, sense of purpose and bond with his family that were beyond his years. Baseball is a highly skilled game that can grind down even the most talented players with the frequent storms of failure that do not discriminate. True greatness is not guaranteed, but what I did know was that if any 16-year-old kid had the granite-like foundation to weather the storms of failure and expectations, it was this one.
He has not disappointed. The home run was career home run number 321 for Harper. Not turning 32 until October, Harper with two more walks will join Mickey Mantle and Barry Bonds as the only players with 300 homers, 100 stolen bases and 1,000 walks through age 31, the imprimaturs of power, speed and patience. He has been even better in the postseason, rising to a .613 slugging percentage and .996 OPS. He has two MVP awards.
But what he does not have is a World Series championship, his six postseason appearances ending at best with one pennant. That is why as we stood there in the runway in London Stadium, Harper gushed not about his celebratory slide but about what makes this Philadelphia team special.
“I just don't feel like we have any emotion, like, towards good or bad,” he says. “Yeah, I think we’re good. We've got a lot of young veterans. But I think we do a really good job of understanding what we can do on a daily basis. It's just fun. I mean, it really is. We just have a good time, man.
“Like I say—and I say it all the time—but we hate to lose more than we like to win.”
The Phillies rarely lose. They are 45–19. Thirty-five previous teams in the World Series era won at least 45 of their first 64 games. Twenty-seven of them won a pennant (77%), with 13 of them winning it all (37%).
The modern expanded postseason is a minefield, as the Phillies discovered last year when an Arizona team with six fewer wins bounced them from the tournament. But this Phillies team, which is relatively young, deep, fearless and coalesced, has a vibe similar to that of the most recent National League team to start 45–19 on its way to winning it all: the 1986 New York Mets.
“We can be down in a game or ahead in a game,” Harper says, “and it's just like, ‘Alright, keep going consistently.’ You know, that's the key. It's a long season, of course. But I think we have a really good demeanor for that. It doesn't matter what you do right now. I mean, obviously it does, but you gotta keep going. It’s like, ‘You just gotta keep going.’ That’s it. That’s what we do.”
Harper and the Phillies boast plenty of playoff experience from the last few years and are primed to win their first division title since 2011. / Kyle Ross-USA TODAY Sports
One hundred fifty years ago, in August of 1874, 22 players from the Boston Braves and Philadelphia A’s crossed the Atlantic in the first attempt to introduce baseball to England. The ballplayers wound up being asked to play cricket more than baseball. They played 14 dates in England, seven of them in London.
A newspaper in Tauton was not impressed with this game of baseball, especially when the skill of pitching was compared to cricket: “The variety of English bowling contrasts favourably with the apparent monotony of the pitching at base-ball … The constant employment of the same action by all bowlers strikes an English eye as wearisome.”
One hundred years ago, on Oct. 25, 1924, the Times of London carried a letter to the editor postmarked from Windlesham, Crowborough. The writer was a rare local fan of baseball, writing in perfect prose, “Here is a splendid game, which calls for a fine eye, activity, bodily fitness and judgment in the highest degree … It takes only two or three hours in the playing …”
It was signed, Arthur Conan Doyle. Yes, the famous author of the Sherlock Holmes series admired the American pastime.
One hundred years later, though, baseball still has not made strong inroads in English culture. There is only one dedicated baseball complex in the country. But if the goal of these international games is simply to expose the greatness of the game to the unfamiliar, then the opener of the latest London Series was a smash hit.
Fifteen years to the day after his introduction to a national audience courtesy of the SI cover, Harper made his in-person introduction to an international audience. He did so as one of the game’s great showpersons. He did so simply by being himself.
