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.
