BASEBALL - BRYCE HARPER RETURNED THIS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2019 WHEN PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES FACES NATIONAL PARK IN THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL.

Baseball - Bryce Harper returned this Wednesday,
April 3, 2019 when Philadelphia Phillies faces
National Park  in the Major League Baseball.

Baseball - Bryce Harper returned this Wednesday, April 3, 2019 when Philadelphia Phillies faces National Park in the second game of the three-game series at Major League Baseball. Bryce Harper says he was "ready to go back" to the Nationals; allegedly even offered to have paid him in 2072

Washington would not perform as well if the papers were turned. The 42-year-old, who grew up in northeastern Philadelphia, became a city cop, sat up straight. A few minutes earlier, a line of blue jeans had appeared on the last bus chartered by Phans of Philly, a sports tourism group. Now, at 12:11 p.m., bus 8 slid out of the parking lot in front of the Philadelphia Eagles stadium and headed south-east of Washington.

If the Philadelphia Phillies chose Bryce Harper to create the prodigy in a star and then watch him walk to the Washington Nationals at an agency for free, repeated Rossi, Nationals fans would not have traveled to Philadelphia for him. They would not be there to drink, clap and mock and, for a small number, fight as Harper went from 3 to 5 with a home run and three RBIs on Tuesday night.

"We're going to have half [of Nationals Park]," Rossi said with a smile, as bold and confident and Philadelphia as the more than 400 Phillies fans who had left aside their daily responsibilities to travel to the stadium as a group for the first Harper's visit to his old house as the enemy. All of them - the pool manager and employee, the Clover Farms Dairy employee and Acme's seafood distributor, the electrician and the other electrician - took the bus nearly three hours on Interstate 95 on a cold Tuesday for the same reason. .

Outside Wilmington, Del., Garbage bags tied to seats began to fill with Coors Light and Pabst Blue Ribbon. The Philly Pretzel Factory box emptied quickly. Some fans remembered the difficult years, when they did not have many reasons to make this trip. Now Harper was the reason, the explosive signing to plug what the Phillies felt was already a productive offseason. If Manny Machado, the godfather of San Diego Padres, gave hope to the fans, the Phillies assured something more important. They bought expectations.

There is, for fans in the carpeted seats of the bus, a line between their feelings in 2011 and this season. Harper's career became the bridge between the greatest era in Phillies history and the most ambitious. With a 4-0 draw after winning 8-2 on Tuesday with the title "the last undefeated baseball team," he would mock if he belonged to someone else, with Rhys Hoskins and Aaron Nola and Jake Arrieta and Maikel Franco. and especially Harper, the Phillies have become again incapable. Who knows what could happen on any night at the stadium?

"I lost interest a bit when they were losing," said Pete Shazes, a merchant at SugarHouse Casino who grew up going to Veterans Stadium with his mother. "Now you can feel it again. Its special."

North of Baltimore, bus captain Kyle McGrory led a round of trivia - Who were the last two Phillies to wear the number 3 before Harper? - and distributed hats presented by the team. Meshech Osbourne, a music engineer, explained that the Phillies' success hitchhiked the Eagles and the 76ers and only increased the intensity of the sports-crazed city. Patrick Kelleher, a Delaware County communications technician, explained the transformation as crucial in part because of Philadelphia's contrast with Washington, which he viewed as a white-collar transplant town he could not understand.

"We need the Phillies to win because the Philadelphia sport is what we do out there," he said. This is our escape and we are passionate about it. "

Despite Harper's comments to The Washington Post that he wanted to re-sign with Washington in this offseason, Phillies fans said he did not feel as if the glamorous right-handed player, one of baseball's most prominent faces, chose them as a consolation prize. Of course he was happy where his life was, they said, but that does not mean you can not be happy elsewhere.

"When he did not accept the opt, we did not get angry at the time it took to sign," Murter said. "And it was 13 years, not 10 years."

Harper impressed fans with his comments about hospitals and local schools during his introductory press conference, his decision not to use number 34, Roy Halladay's number, although he could have it, and his immediate adherence. The Phillie Phanatic cleats, the secret handshakes, the crowd interaction, all assured them that Harper wanted to say that.

At 2:47 pm, the bus pulled out of the Rodoanel toward a rear parking gate about half a mile from Nationals Park.