

LOS ANGELES – We wonder sometimes how much they care and still, for some, Bryce Harper plays too hard.

We watch them pace themselves until their contract years and still, for some, Bryce Harper is reckless.

We watch them lay down when the contract comes and still, for some, Bryce Harper must be smarter.

You wouldn't have had to go far Tuesday to come upon the opinion Harper is a threat to himself and his organization, the Washington Nationals. He'd run face-first into the right-field wall at Dodger Stadium the night before, chased a fly ball straight into the immovable object, then looked up from the warning track and asked his teammate, the center fielder, "Is it bad? Is it bad?"

It wasn't great.

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By Tuesday afternoon, Harper's beard had been shaved so a doctor could lace 11 stitches through his chin. He wasn't in Tuesday night's lineup, in part because he was feeling queasy. Specialists have thus far ruled out a concussion, though the Nationals' plan is to continue monitoring Harper for signs otherwise.

Asked what hurt, Harper smiled thinly and said, "Both legs. Shoulder. Ribs. Knee. Wrist. Chin, of course."

When he'd walked off the field – after first trying to talk them into allowing him to continue ("Butterfly it up and play," he'd begged) – Harper looked like he'd been garroted by that fence. So, he'd miss Tuesday night's game against the Dodgers, maybe Wednesday night's game, maybe more. He'd been examined, X-rayed, and had his memory probed for signs of brain injury.

"I know what my name is," he said. "I know who my parents are."

In spite of that evidence, Davey Johnson didn't have him in the lineup against Clayton Kershaw.

Harper has run into stuff before. Other players. Other walls. Plenty of naysayers. To this day he bears a scar over his left eye, there because he ran into his own bat after a fruitless trip to the plate. Two weeks ago, it was a fence in Atlanta. He bruised his left side and then had two hits in his next 19 at-bats. Entirely undaunted, and in a game the Nationals led, 6-0, Harper charged again after the baseball and this time discovered the out-of-town scoreboard. Along with the news the rival Braves were well ahead of the Diamondbacks, Harper discovered that this particular wall held many of the same qualities as other walls, primarily in that he'll never be able to run through one. Except metaphorically.

And for this, Harper found he'd be criticized for trying to make a play when it would have been safer, easier, fully understandable, if he'd pulled up and taken the ball off the wall. Hey, the Nationals were way ahead. It was even suggested that the Nationals, infamous for swaddling Stephen Strasburg in an innings limit, should be equally concerned with Harper's habit of putting himself at risk.

Just stop. Let the young man play the game. He misjudged a fly ball. In a foreign ballpark he didn't feel the warning track under his feet. He didn't concern himself with the scoreboard, and not just the one he caromed off. The ball was in the air. He tried to catch it.

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