How does Bryce Harper thrive under playoff pressure? He’s lived with it since he was 16.

October overwhelms some superstars. Harper revels in it. That makes sense to his former coaches and teammates who had a front-row seat to his youth baseball odyssey.

As a teenager, Bryce Harper crisscrossed the country to play for various summer travel baseball teams.Read moreIsaac Brekken / ASSOCIATED PRESS

by Scott Lauber

Published Oct. 16, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

The headline in the local newspaper shouted “PHENOMENAL,” in bold type and all caps. Makeshift bleachers were erected and extra security enlisted to handle the standing-room-only crowd. An ESPN film crew showed up, and hundreds of autograph seekers jockeyed for position behind the dugout.

All to catch a glimpse of a 16-year-old.

Fourteen years later, Kevin Winterrowd can’t recall exactly what he expected when Bryce Harper blew through Oklahoma City like a tornado, but it certainly wasn’t that. For a week in June 2009, Harper played (more like guest starred) for a summer league team coached by Winterrowd, and well, it was as far from normal as you could possibly imagine.

“It was just a degree of media scrutiny that I had never been around,” Winterrowd said by phone, “and I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure I’d want to be around it again. I don’t know of another 16-year-old kid, minus LeBron James, that may have had to deal with that. But Bryce handled it, like it was just another day at the office for him.”

Because it was. Harper grew up in Las Vegas but spent his summers playing for travel teams in California, Oklahoma, Alabama, and other far-flung places. His dad would drive him five hours to San Diego, or hop a five-hour flight to North Carolina. There were showcases at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, and USA Baseball tournaments in Mexico and Venezuela.

Harper was a prodigy in a sport that isn’t known for prodigies. He insists now that he welcomed it. He set out to be the No. 1 pick in the draft and one of the best players of his generation, lofty goals that bring outsized attention.

But last week, after authoring another in a string of Mr. October-worthy moments to help push the Phillies into the National League Championship Series for a second consecutive year, Harper conceded that he grew up with a level of pressure unmatched by even the glare of the MLB postseason.

“Going to [junior college] early and having everybody in the world relying on you to be the No. 1 pick, that was hard,” Harper said. “[Being] 17 years old, 16 years old, trying to be the No. 1 pick, knowing that if you’re not, you’re a failure, that’s pressure, you know? Trying to make all the money you can to get your family out of an area or set them up for life, that’s pressure.

“I remember telling my dad when I was 11 years old, ‘I’m going to be the No. 1 pick.’ And from that moment on, it’s like, OK, here’s the pressure, here’s the you-got-to-be-this, you-got-to-be-that. But this is all just so much fun.”

And that’s Harper’s explanation for his uncanny ability to rise to meet the moment. Five years into a 13-year, $330 million contract with the Phillies, he’s a .354/.448/.768 hitter with nine home runs in 23 games over the last two postseasons, including .368/.539/.842 with three homers in six games so far this year.

October overwhelms some superstars. Harper, who turns 31 Monday, revels in it.

It makes sense to Harper’s former coaches and teammates who had a front-row seat to his youth baseball odyssey. Wherever he went, he was the star of the show. Whenever he played, onlookers expected him to hit home runs.

As Winterrowd put it, “There was absolutely an irrational standard on Bryce every time he hit the field.”

Much of it was self-induced. At age 10, Harper began playing for the San Diego Stars, a travel team that boasts 67 alumni in pro ball. Even then, his talent eclipsed many of his peers, according to Stars founder Lyle Gabriel.

But Harper also possessed an uncommon discipline and drive. To wit: Harper would perform a hitting drill in which he would use a training bat with a one-inch diameter barrel — “Basically a broom handle,” Gabriel said by phone — and hit pinto beans pitched to him by his father.

“Oh my God, I couldn’t believe it,” Gabriel recalled. “I said, ‘Whoa, this kid’s something.’ Never ever seen anyone try that.”

With the Stars, Harper played in tournaments at Cooperstown Dreams Park, near the Hall of Fame. It was then, Gabriel said, that “people knew the name Bryce Harper.”

And as Harper’s profile rose, his status as a phenom grew. He hit a ball 502 feet off the back wall at Tropicana Field in a home run derby and a homer in a game for Las Vegas High that was measured at 570 feet.

There were high school prospects, and then there was Harper.

“Well, that’s what he wanted,” Gabriel said. “He knew that at a young age. That’s exactly why he came to the San Diego Stars. Listen, the pressure he’s under now, he’s had that for 15 years.”

Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos didn’t know who Harper was when they met at a hotel near Florida International University before tryouts for USA Baseball’s under-16 team. A few weeks later, as they walked off the field after a game at the Tournament of the Stars in Raleigh, N.C., Castellanos got his first taste of Harper’s stardom.

“We were about to walk into a crowd, and there were people asking him for his autograph,” Castellanos said. “That’s when I was like, ‘Damn, bro. You made it if you’ve got people asking you for your autograph.’”

It wasn’t just stateside, either. In 2008, Phillies pitcher Michael Lorenzen played with Harper in Mexico at the Pan Am Championships and marveled at autograph requests aimed directly at him.

“Everyone knew who Harper was,” Lorenzen said. “He’s been living under that scope of pressure for his entire life. He had all the hype, but the thing is, it wasn’t just hype. He lived up to it when he was a kid.”

The hype ratcheted to unprecedented levels a few days before Harper arrived in Oklahoma City.

Sports Illustrated had put him on the cover, dubbed him “Baseball’s Chosen One,” and equated him to LeBron. So, more than 200 people waited for Harper after his first game at Lake Hefner Park. Winterrowd asked Harper if he wanted to have security clear the area. Harper agreed to sign for every kid, with one request.

“He said, ‘Let’s just have the adults back up,’” Winterrowd said. “I’m not sure I’d have dealt with all that with that much reasonableness and not being overwhelmed.”

Locally, there were breathless rumors that the Harpers might relocate to Oklahoma City. They had another plan, which involved Bryce’s taking the general educational development (GED) tests, leaving high school early, and enrolling in junior college to become eligible for the MLB draft as a 17-year-old in 2010.

“Between him and his dad,” Winterrowd said, “their bar was so far out ahead of everybody else’s and they weren’t going to be distracted. And Bryce bought into the sacrifices that it takes to get there.”

Surely, though, Harper could have wilted under that pressure. And that’s the part that amazes Winterrowd, Castellanos, and so many others. Because while Harper admits that, yes, he felt the stress of being Bryce Harper, none of them ever saw it consume him.

“With how high the bar was set, honestly, once you come out of that, you’re going to fall short no matter what,” Castellanos said. “LeBron James [bleeping] falls short, and look at what he’s been able to do. Bryce does an unbelievable job of living to that standard.”

Said Winterrowd: “There had to be times when he went home and said, ‘Can I just go play a baseball game?’ But when he was projecting out who he wanted to be, I think he understood that was going to be part of it, and he might as well deal with it then.”

And everything that has happened since?

“This is all cake, man,” Harper said. “This is so much fun.”