Bryce Harper said he wanted to sign with the Giants last month, but unlike Tony Bennett his heart just wasn’t in San Francisco.

It belonged to Philadelphia.

Harper told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal he loved pretty much everything about the Giants and he would have been happy to play here. But he needed to follow his heart.

(Here’s where the cynical Giants supporters point out he also followed the money).

Even though the Giants’ final offer of 12 years, $310 million was less than the 13-year, $330 million deal he accepted from the Phillies, Harper indicated it wouldn’t have mattered what San Francisco offered. He and his wife, Kayla, had already made up their minds before the Giants’ last-ditch effort.

“We sat there and talked for a little bit,” Harper told Rosenthal after receiving Philly’s offer. “And I remember standing there, me hugging her and saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to Philly.’ That was before we even heard from San Fran. San Fran called back, offered whatever it was. By that point, it was kind of like, ‘I’m already a Philadelphia Phillie.’

“In my heart, I was already a Philadelphia Phillie. It was nothing against San Francisco. They’re a great organization. It’s a great city. It just came down to what I felt. And by that point, it was Philly.”

As his agent, Scott Boras noted, it didn’t hurt Philadelphia’s chances that its highest marginal tax rate was about 10 percent less than the 13.3 rate Harper would have faced in California.

Then, when you consider how much further along the Phillies are than the Giants in terms of building a winner, it’s easy to see why Harper was so confident in his decision.

There was also the reasoned theory that spending half of your career at hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Ballpark rather than cavernous Oracle Park had to be a factor. However, despite terrible career marks of .164/.305/.284 with two home runs in 19 games in San Francisco, Harper told Rosenthal hitting at Oracle wasn’t a daunting task.

“I saw my (home-run) overlays on each park — Nationals Park, L.A., San Fran, Philly. The overlays weren’t as crazy as people would think. Related Articles Giants reliever Caleb Baragar to start, Kapler won’t reveal pitching strategy

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“Hitting the ball to left-center in San Francisco, it’s a little bit of a jet stream. And I hit my balls to left-center a lot. Of course, you factor in wind and cold weather, things like that. But that was never really a factor.

“I’m not scared of ballparks. It was kind of like, ‘If I go into San Fran, it will make me a better hitter because I’ll have to stay on the ball.’ You have Triples Alley to right. But if I stay on the ball and hit the ball to left, then pull homers to right, the line drives to left would have played. So ballpark-wise, it wasn’t that big of a decision to me.”

In the end, Harper probably made the best decision for all concerned. Let’s face it, did we really want to spend the next 12 years hearing Harper constantly refer to The City as ‘San Fran’?