'Royce' Harper gets revenge on 'Rusty' Baker for butchering his name
Last week, Washington Nationals manager Dusty Baker suffered a brain fart and referred to Bryce Harper as "Royce."
You'd figure if he'd have one name down pat, it'd be that of the reigning National League MVP. The team's new skipper actually repeated the goof before jokingly introducing "Royce Harper" to the team as a new player.
On Tuesday during an interview with 106.7 The Fan in Washington D.C., Baker expanded on his lapse and revealed how "Royce" responded:
“In baseball, everybody calls each other by their last name, basically. You don’t see a guy’s first name on the back of his jersey. And in the military — I was in the Marines for six years — you address everybody by their last name. So I’m not good at first names. I call my nephews the wrong names sometimes. I know the guy’s name. I don’t know why I called him ‘Royce.'”
“Most of us have nicknames, plus I call some of them ‘Junior,’ I call some of them ‘Dude.'" They know who I'm talking to. And so Bryce, he called me ‘Rusty.’ So it’s no big deal. My wife goes, ‘Why don’t you just call him Harp?’ I’m like, ‘Baby, I don’t know if he likes to go by Harp or not. You can’t just call a guy some name.'"
Incidentally, there is a real Rusty Baker in sports. He hosts the Rusty Baker show on ESPN Aggieland 103.9 FM.
Look for Royce/Dude/Junior/Harper to lead the Nationals in nearly every statistical category again in 2016.
