The game has changed and so has Cole Hamels, who drilled Bryce Harper in 2012: ‘That was what you did’

Twelve years later as he retires a Phillie, Hamels reflected on his “old baseball” welcome to the big leagues for a 19-year-old Harper, who still doesn’t see much sense in it.

Bryce Harper taking a pitch to the back from then-Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels in 2012.Read moreAP, Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Scott Lauber

Published June 21, 2024, 9:00 a.m. ET

Cole Hamels watched from a mezzanine-level suite in London Stadium two weeks ago when Bryce Harper celebrated a home run by sliding on his knees, soccer-style, in front of the Phillies’ dugout.

“That was cool,” Hamels said this week.

Sure, and judging from the reaction in the stands and on social media, most people — Brits, Americans, red-blooded Phillies fans, even self-deprecating Mets loyalists — were similarly entertained. Harper was being Harper. “The Showman,” as teammates adoringly call him, was showing off for a new audience. No harm, no foul.

If anything, baseball needs more of that. It was good for the game.

But Hamels is also a former pitcher — easily among the four or five best in Phillies history, to boot — so he has a more nuanced perspective. And although he’s only 40 — closer in age to 31-year-old Harper than most retired players — and just four years removed from his final game, he might as well have played in an entirely different era.

So, as part of a wide-ranging conversation with The Inquirer before the Phillies honor him with a pregame retirement ceremony Friday night, Hamels shared his thoughts on Harper’s theatrical homage to Europe’s favorite athletic pastime by guessing how it would have gone over in, say, 2006, when he made his major-league debut, or in 2008, when he was named MVP of the World Series.

“It would not have flown 20 years ago,” Hamels said, chuckling. “People would’ve been like, ‘Oh no, you’re dead.’ He would get hit. I think even his teammates, his locker would’ve been like in the freezer. He would’ve been wearing bike shorts back to the hotel. That’s just kind of how it was.”

Heck, 12 years ago, Hamels drilled Harper for nothing more than, well, what exactly? A rite of passage?

It isn’t among Hamels’ prouder moments from a decorated 15-year career in which he racked up 163 wins, a 3.43 ERA, and 59 wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference. It’s not one of his favorite subjects, either, even now. But it is part of his history, especially because Harper wound up becoming the face of the Phillies in what could turn out to be the franchise’s next golden era.

Someday, Hamels and Harper will even share space on the Phillies’ Wall of Fame. Considering how the former chose to introduce himself to the latter on May 6, 2012, it’s proof that the baseball gods have a wicked sense of humor.

“For both of us, I think it’s that water under the bridge,” Hamels said. “You understand the situation and how things can get taken out of proportion in a way, and it’s like, ‘Oops, that was definitely not how I foresaw it kind of happening.’ But I initiated it. My fault.

“I have a ton of respect for him. As a player, we always knew he was going to be a superstar. And I’ve become a huge fan of who he is as a person.”

OK, a refresher:

The Phillies, five-time defending NL East champs, were 13-13 when they arrived in Washington on the first weekend in May 2012. The Nationals, ever the division’s tomato can, blazed to a 16-9 start that inspired them to begin calling their home field “Natitude Park.”

If the Phillies weren’t overtly threatened by the Nats, they surely felt them encroaching on their corner after Harper — 19 years old and billed as the next Mickey Mantle — made his major-league debut one week earlier.

The Phillies dropped the first two games of the series by a combined 11-4 score. And with two out in the first inning of the finale, before a national audience on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, Harper stepped to the plate against Hamels.

“Young Bryce, 19, I didn’t really care who was on the mound,” Harper recalled this week. “Obviously I was a little arrogant to that point where it was just like, ‘All right, Cole Hamels. I don’t really care.’”

Said Hamels: “There’s always the checks and balances as athletes. It’s like, ‘Hey man, you want to be that type of guy? All right, go ahead. We’re watching.’ We’re always going to check each other.”

To Hamels, that meant pegging Harper in the back with the first pitch, a 93 mph fastball.

Welcome to the big leagues, Kid.

Hamels insisted it was how things were done. He neither apologized for nor hid from it. He even admitted to reporters after the game that he “was trying to hit” Harper as a way of carrying on “old baseball” traditions.

MLB suspended Hamels for five games, a wrist slap for a starting pitcher and a punishment that seemed to be meted out as much for Hamels’ words as his actions

“That was just the day and age back then,” Hamels said. “That was what you did, and that was just kind of what happened and then [it’s] done, over. It probably would’ve been a lot quicker if I wasn’t as stupid about opening my mouth.”

The Nationals accused Hamels of being plain stupid. General manager Mike Rizzo decried him as “classless” and “fake tough,” the latter turning into a slogan for T-shirts made by Phillies players.

“I thought it was dumb, you know?” Harper said, 12 years later. “But it is what it is.”

If anything, Harper channeled his emotions into his baserunning. He zoomed from first to third on Jayson Werth’s single. And when the Phillies called a pickoff throw to first, he stole home.

“I blame [bench coach] Pete Mackanin,” Hamels said. “He made me pick over. I’m like, ‘Pete, you didn’t see him? You can’t see he’s halfway down the line?’ Pete and I didn’t talk for like two weeks after that because I was actually pretty [ticked]. I was like, ‘I didn’t want to pick over, but I have to listen otherwise you’re going to chew me out. And now I’ve got guys stealing home.’ Served me wrong, but whatever. It’s like anything. We just laugh about it years later.”

Over the years, Hamels and Harper faced off several more times. Harper went 10-for-38 with nine walks and finally homered in his second-to-last plate appearance against Hamels, on Aug. 14, 2019 at Citizens Bank Park; Hamels struck out Harper eight times and got him to ground into one double play.

There was only the one hit-by-pitch.

If nothing else, a mutual respect developed. Hamels credits Harper for living up to the billing — and then some — by winning rookie of the year in 2012 and being crowned NL MVP in 2015 and again with the Phillies in 2021. Harper regards Hamels among the toughest lefties he’s faced.

“He was the first lefty in my career that I saw a lefty-lefty changeup,” Harper said. “He’d throw that two-seamer in and work off it with that changeup. It was one of the best changeups from a left-handed pitcher of all time. Johan [Santana] had it, but the first time I ever saw it was from Cole.”

Said Hamels: “From Day 1, it was like, man, you want a player like that on your team. This is a generational talent.”

But they have barely discussed that initial run-in other than what Hamels described as a “real quick acknowledgment.”

There isn’t much to say.

“I don’t think he probably wants to reminisce on it,” Harper said. “Not the biggest concern for me — or him, I would imagine.”

Candidly, Harper said it still doesn’t make sense. As a phenom who was dubbed “Baseball’s Chosen One” on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 16, he wasn’t a stranger to jealousy or resentment, especially from old-school veteran players who believed he hadn’t done anything to earn the praise, headlines, and endorsements.

But Hamels was a first-round pick, too, drafted 17th overall in 2002 out of a San Diego high school. He was a prospect-lover’s delight, a staple in the Baseball America rankings, and his first major-league start on May 12, 2006, in Cincinnati qualified as a huge deal.

So, maybe it had more to do with Harper’s flash. His first hit was a double at Dodger Stadium on April 28, 2012, and as he chugged around first base, he flipped his helmet off his head. That rubbed some people the wrong way.

But Harper quickly backed up his style with substance. And the game has changed, too. Somewhere along the line, it became more acceptable to show emotion. Pitchers exult now after big strikeouts. Bat flips are common practice.

Maybe the tide turned in the 2015 AL division series, when Blue Jays slugger José Bautista flipped — no, heaved — his bat after blasting a go-ahead three-run homer in the seventh inning of a decisive Game 5.

Guess who started that game for the Rangers.

“It’s hard to be politically correct,” Hamels told reporters at the time. “It’s tough to see. A lot of us on our team don’t carry ourselves that way.”

Contrast that with Mets manager Carlos Mendoza’s reaction to Harper’s soccer slide: “He’s a good player, and he hits it far. I have no issue with it.”

Even Hamels admits that it was ... dare we say ... fun, if not justifiable for a two-time MVP who is likely bound for the Hall of Fame someday.

“I think now it’s like, ‘All right, you passed all the tests,’” Hamels said. “We all have to pass tests for the veterans. I had to do it. Every good player and athlete has to do it in any sport. And once you do it, you get all the respect and praise. You’ve earned it. And he’s earned every single thing he’s done. I’m excited to watch him. I really am a fan of what he’s doing.

“What he just did with the soccer slide, that was actually kind of cool — and got some really good pub.”

Nothing wrong with that, no matter if you’re old school or new.