Bryce Harper Enjoys Messing With The Heads Of Cubs Fans

By Emma G. Gallegos in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 25, 2017 9:59PM

Bryce Harper with some kids and a very heavily scrutinized Bulls hat (Jake Teague/Twitter)

Bryce Harper is an excellent baseball player, which matters for a city that is deeply appreciative of its baseball players. Currently, he plays in right field for The Washington Nationals, a team that is excellent but not excellent enough to beat the Cubs during playoffs this season. Harper's contract is up after this season, and Chicago, too, has taken note of this. And Harper has taken note of Chicago taking note of this, and he's been having a lot of fun with this all year long.

Earlier this week, he was spotted casually wearing a Bulls hat:

He was also spotted at a Blackhawks game in Las Vegas, because Harper has an appreciation for all sorts of sports besides his chosen one:

Recently, he reminded everyone on his Snapchat that he has a dog named Wrigley, which could mean he's a fan of Doublemint gum or we could be seeing a Chicago theme running through these posts:

His wife is in on the fun, too. In August, she joined in on the hashtag #HarperToTheCubs, along with the wife of Kris Bryant, a fellow Las Vegan. (Previously, Bryant was in on the fun, too.)

But the thing about Harper is he's a self-admitted troll. He told the Washington Post in July that he likes stoke speculation: "I do that to the media because they stir it more than I do. That’s why I do the things I do at times, because it’s funny to me. It’s like, 'All right, people want to talk about this and talk about that. Why not just throw this out there and make them think about it?'"

And then there's the question of money. Harper is expected to command a record-breaking amount of it when he becomes a free agent for the season. And the Cubs is already paying quite a bit of money for their stars. As NBC Sports notes, "From the Cubs' perspective, it will be hard to figure the money out to make Harper-to-Chicago a reality."

We've got another full year before anyone knows where Harper is headed, and if he keeps things up, we've got another full year of Harper messing with the heads of Chicago fans: