‘The Showman’ Bryce Harper has an All-Star Game stage. What’s his next surprise act?

ARLINGTON, Texas — Wait until you see Bryce Harper’s All-Star cleats.

You knew he would bring custom footwear, right? Harper has a pair for every occasion. Opening day? Check. Mother’s Day? For sure. Two regular-season games in London? Bloody right.

The start of Hoagiefest?

“A few weeks ago, he’s at first, I’m at third, we’re running off the field, and he’s got Wawa cleats on,” Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm said. “I’m like, ‘How’d he think of that?’ He always has something new, something cool, something going on. Everybody loves it. It’s cool.”

» READ MORE: The Bryce brand: Phillies’ Harper is intimately involved with how he’s marketed, and it’s paying off

It’s Harper, and he has a style all his own. His teammates call him “The Showman,” a nickname that has to do with more than merely his knack for knocking such big hits at such pivotal times that he’s almost certainly headed for the Hall of Fame someday.

And he does it all with a distinctive flair — and fashion — that somehow has been missing from the All-Star Game since (checks notes) 2018.

You had better believe, then, that Harper began exchanging concepts with his partners at Under Armour (arm sleeves, batting gloves, cleats) and Victus (bats) even before MLB unveiled the 2024 All-Star jerseys, which, by the way, are navy blue with pastel light blue sleeves for the National League.

“Oh, I’ve got it all,” said Harper, back at the literal center of All-Star media day Monday at a table in the middle of a row, back-to-back with international superstar Shohei Ohtani. “I’ve got it all. I’m excited.”

(Harper, it should be noted, said he prefers when the All-Stars wore their team’s uniforms, a practice that existed until three years ago.)

As much as anyone in the sport, including Ohtani, Harper embraces his role as an entertainer as much as an athlete. How many players would have bowed, theatrically, to fans in the right-field bleachers at Citizens Bank Park before every game in 2019?

And who else comes up with the idea of sliding, Premier League-style, in front of the dugout after homering on the converted soccer pitch at London Stadium last month?

“No one,” Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott said. “He knows what gets people watching.”

Said shortstop Trea Turner: “A lot of the things that he thinks about or that cross his mind, I would never even consider. It’s kind of like an art form. But it’s also who he is, how he plays the game, how he lives his life. I don’t think he’s trying to do anything out of the ordinary. He’s just having fun. It’s entertaining for us and entertaining for fans.”

» READ MORE: From 2022: Ten years (already?) of Bryce Harper: From teen phenom to ‘I grew up watching you play’

It was always that way. In his major-league debut, as a 19-year-old in 2012, Harper flung his helmet off his head as he rounded second base on his first career hit to reveal a mohawk/mullet hairdo.

“I think he wanted everybody to see his face,” former teammate Chad Tracy said.

But it wasn’t only that. Harper used a gray bat that didn’t conform with MLB regulations that have since been loosened.

“And I got in trouble for it,” he said, laughing. “That was kind of the start of, ‘How can I do this? How far can I go to the line and not cross over?’ The last few years, MLB has done a great job of letting guys do their thing with what they wear and how they do it.”

In four decades at the helm of the front offices of five teams, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski hasn’t seen many players who are as comfortable in the spotlight. He noted David Ortiz and maybe Miguel Cabrera.

“I don’t think a lot of guys really possess that,” Dombrowski said. “To have the charismatic aspect and play that way with a flair, fans like that. It’s great. National exposure. It’s tremendous. I haven’t been around a lot of guys like that. A few, but he’s got as much of an understanding of that as anybody.”

Early in his career, Harper lobbied to make baseball more appealing for younger fans and players. He always believed an effective way to do that was through baseball fashion.

» READ MORE: Alec Bohm’s place with the Phillies was in question two years ago. Now he’s starting in the All-Star Game.

Harper, now 31, started a custom line of sneakers and cleats with Under Armour (the Harper 9s came out in May). In 2016, he extended the partnership with a 10-year contract that was believed to be the largest endorsement deal ever for a baseball player, reportedly surpassing Alex Rodríguez’s 10-year deal with Nike for a little more than $1 million annually.

But unlike many athletes, Harper is hands-on. He works closely with Under Armour footwear designer Spencer Hawkins, who a few years ago said Harper was “one of the only people in baseball to actually be an influencer in that [sneaker] space.”

Harper laughed about brainstorming ideas at random times and sharing them with his wife before discussing them with Hawkins.

“It’s the cleats, it’s the bats, the batting gloves, the arm sleeves, the bands, everything,” Harper said. “The headbands are big now. Those are the things [fans] like to see, right? Not just the speed and the power. It’s the colors, the multicolored stuff that doesn’t match your uniform. Whatever it is, they pull from that, so I like being able to bring that to my game and do those things.”

Harper was still with the Nationals when he played in his last All-Star Game, in 2018 in Washington. He wore custom-designed cleats that featured renderings of the cherry blossoms and presidential monuments.

Six years later, he’s finally healthy and available to play in the All-Star Game. He’s also a father of three, and it will mark the first time his children have seen him in the game, even though it’s his eighth career All-Star selection, tied for most among NL players with Braves lefty Chris Sale (age 35), Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman (34), and Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts (31), who is unable to play because of a broken hand.

And Harper spent much of media day talking about the younger stars in the sport, including Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., who won the high school home run derby at the 2018 All-Star Game in Washington when Harper won the MLB derby.

“The game is going to be in good hands, especially with guys like that,” Harper said. “Bobby Witt, Gunnar [Henderson], I want to say Juan Soto, as well. It’s an accumulation of young studs coming up, man. It’s a lot of fun.”

» READ MORE: From teen prospect in rural Venezuela to All-Star: How Ranger Suárez became ‘that guy’ with the Phillies

But Harper remains the draw. His jersey is the second-highest seller after Ohtani, based on data released last week by MLB. According to Q Score, only Aaron Judge and Mike Trout have a higher familiarity rating among men 18 and older than Harper’s 41% mark.

“There’s a lot of superstars, but I always joke that I’ve only played with two famous people,” Turner said. “Mookie and Bryce are the only two famous people I’ve ever played with. Those two guys are on another level.”

Stott, who has known Harper since they were growing up in Las Vegas, has witnessed the star power since before Harper was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 16.

“There’s famous and then there’s a celebrity. He’s a celebrity,” Stott said. “Can’t go anywhere, can’t do much of anything without getting bombarded. People are always watching him.”

Are they not entertained?