I love watching Josh Harrison play baseball. His energy and enthusiasm are a joy to see. I hate to pat any pro athlete on the back for playing hard because that’s what they’re paid well to do, but Harrison takes it to another level. Clint Hurdle frequently has called him a spark for the Pirates. It’s no coincidence the team’s awful September collapse started about the time he went out with a broken left hand after being hit by a pitch.
I also love what Harrison does off the field. He is the Pirates’ nominee for the annual Roberto Clemente Award, the greatest honor in baseball because, to win it, a player has to be just as impactful in the community as he is on his team. Whether it’s helping mothers-to-be buy diapers and bottles or providing winter coats and gloves for disadvantaged kids, Harrison always is willing. He knows he has a platform as a sports star and uses it to give back. Good for him.
I’m really going to miss Harrison if he’s traded in the offseason.
It could happen.
Much has been made about Andrew McCutchen and/or Gerrit Cole being traded, but it’s not hard to imagine Harrison being moved because of his contract. He will make $10 million next season, a salary that was met or topped by 133 players this season. It’s a reasonable amount for a player who made his second All-Star game in July, but, to Pirates management, it’s an exorbitant number that Bob Nutting usually is loath to pay.
“I don’t think about it,” Harrison said this week in the Pirates clubhouse before getting treatment on his hand. “It’s not anything I’m worried about. The more you play this game, the more you realize there are things you can’t control. I’ve got a job to do here. I’m a Pirate until told otherwise. And, sometimes, otherwise doesn’t happen.”
We can hope, right?
Harrison was the Pirates’ best, most consistent everyday player before his season ended Sept. 2 when he was hit by a pitch from Cincinnati’s Tyler Mahle, the 23rd time he was hit by a pitch this season. He batted .272 with 16 home runs and a .771 OPS. He also willingly played whatever position Hurdle asked, always with great passion.
Harrison provided the brightest moment for the Pirates in this long, dark, lost season. His 10th-inning home run off the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Rich Hill Aug. 23 didn’t just give the team a 1-0 win. It ended Hill’s no-hitter.
Harrison didn’t run around the bases as much as he floated.
“It was pretty cool to be the first in history to break up a no-hitter with a home run in extra innings.”
Harrison agreed it is every player’s responsibility to play all-out, all the time because that’s what pros do. He said it’s easy for him for two reasons. One, he signed a four-year, $27.3 million contract at the beginning of the 2015 season with club options of $10.5 million in 2019 and $11.5 million in 2020. “It allows me to play free and leave everything on the field.” And two, he is father to Mia Jade, 3, with another daughter, to be named Kinsli, due any day. “This game is tough, both physically and mentally. Once you have kids, I think it allows you to understand I can go 0-for-4 and see my daughter and she’s not, ‘Daddy, you went 0-for-4.’ She’s saying, ‘Daddy, pick me up.’ It allows me to say, ‘Baseball is baseball. Forget the 0-for-4. Go get ’em tomorrow.’ Now, I’m Daddy. I’m a husband to my wife. I know when I leave the field, I’m Josh Harrison the person, not Josh Harrison the baseball player. I’ve always said baseball doesn’t define me as a person.”
Harrison’s kindness and charitable acts do.
Five years ago, Harrison started a program called “Blessings in Backpacks,” which sends home food with underprivileged kids to make sure they have something to eat on weekends. “What they found out was these kids weren’t coming to school and they were testing badly,” he said. “Just being in that program, their attendance improved. Their grades improved.”
Two years ago, Harrison and his wife, Brittney, started their “For Hope Foundation.” They staged a baseball-themed dinner at Hotel Monaco last September to benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. They held a baby shower in May for expectant mothers to, in his words, “provide the small necessities such as diapers, shampoo, soap and bottles, things that we take for granted, but things they didn’t know where they were going to get them.” Earlier this month, they organized a trip for kids in need to Dick’s Sporting Goods in Cranberry Township. McCutchen (the Clemente Award winner in 2015), Cole, Sean Rodriguez, Jordy Mercer, Jameson Taillon and Chris Stewart were among Harrison’s teammates who came along to help the kids pick out winter coats, hats, boots and gloves.
“I can get my daughter anything she needs, but there’s someone’s daughter out there who can’t afford a winter coat,” Harrison said. “When you can help those you don’t know and who don’t expect it, I think you get a greater sense of fulfillment from that. To those kids, it made the biggest difference in the world. How do you not get excited when you see those kids’ faces?”
It was clear in that moment that the shopping spree at Dick’s meant as much to Harrison as his home run off Hill.
“I’ve been blessed,” he said. “I don’t take it for granted. Life is precious. I always ask when I’m praying, ‘How can I be a blessing to others?’ It’s in my heart to help others in need.”
The Pirates need more Josh Harrisons. Pittsburgh needs more.
Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com and Twitter@RonCookPG. Ron Cook can be heard on the “Cook and Poni” show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
First Published: September 22, 2017, 10:00 a.m.