Within 24 hours of agreeing to terms on a colossal mega-deal to become the new face of the Phillies, Bryce Harper was apparently recruiting another superstar – from an entirely different sport – to join him in Philadelphia.
Running back Le’Veon Bell, who will become an unrestricted free agent on March 13th after sitting out a season in Pittsburgh, shared an Instagram direct message from Harper’s account urging him to sign with the Eagles. The message was in response to Bell tagging Harper and congratulating him on the deal with the Phillies. The Eagles were reportedly interested in adding Bell via a trade during the 2018 season, but may not be able to realistically afford him this offseason.
“Aye come join! Let’s take this city by storm. Bring as many titles as we can to the greatest city in the world. Brotherly Love. #SecureTheBag”
I don’t know about you, readers, but I’m not buying that Bryce Harper actually wrote this message. The evidence: Bryce Harper has a lot of sponsored content on his Instagram account, all of which contains ad copy that was almost certainly written by a PR person or social media handler and not Harper himself, so he might not be the only person with access. In Harper’s non-sponsored posts, which he presumably shares himself, the captions are far more informal than this recruiting pitch sounds.
It also feels extremely premature for Harper, a Las Vegas native who is very proud of his city, to call Philadelphia “the greatest city in the world” before he even arrived to his new home. Even the capitalization on “Brotherly Love” is suspect.
Then again, maybe Bryce Harper – who identified himself as a Cowboys fan, of all teams, in 2010 – truly wants to turn Philadelphia into the next Boston and actually wrote this. In any event, Bell received the message, and if there were any Phillies fans not already in love with Harper, this just sealed the deal.
