2012 Memories: Bryce Harper Gets Stitches

Bryce Harper: Blood & Stitches

Bryce Harper is a baseball menace.  A menace to opposing pitchers.  A menace to runners trying to score.  A menace to players trying to get extra base hits in the gap.  However, Harper also proved in his rookie season that he is a menace to equipment, and sometimes, to himself.

It didn't take long for Bryce Harper to start wreaking havoc in the Major Leagues.  Just 12 days into his young career, Harper came out onto the field in the middle of a May 11th game against the Reds in Cincinnati with blood trickling down his face from a large cut.

Harper was upset at himself after his 4th hitless at bat of the game, went down into the locker room tunnel, and smashed his bat against the concrete wall.  Unfortunately for Harper, the bat bounced off the wall and hit him right below the eye, cutting open his face, a cut that would later require 10 stitches.

Harper remained in the game with a bandaid covering his wound, and batted one more time to finish 0-5, and was removed in the bottom of the 9th inning.  The Nationals won the game 7-3.


After the game the big national story was the Bryce Harper incident, and Harper was asked about his actions.  Harper said he takes out his anger on bats a lot, but this was the first time the bat fought back.

Davey Johnson just pushed away all thoughts that this was a serious issue with his response to what they did to medically tend to Bryce's giant cut.

Reporters asked Bryce if he would ever make the same mistake again, to which Bryce replied with a typical 19 year old style answer.

While Bryce Harper never gave himself stitches again, he did have several other anger outbursts throughout the 2012 season including breaking bats and throwing helmets.  Harper is a fiery player who gets mad when he doesn't play perfect.  Expect to see more fire as his career continues.

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Here are some of our blog posts from the actual time of the event:

• Slumping Harper Finally Hits Something, His Face

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Quotes to the media referenced from the Washington Post