The Nationals’ Bryce Harper Plays Softball on the Mall

Last night, the World Wildlife Fund’s Fighting Pandas and the Alliance to Save Energy’s Killer Watts were playing a friendly game of softball on the Mall when a passerby asked if they needed a pinch hitter. That passerby happened to be Bryce Harper, the new outfielder for the Washington Nationals. After making his MLB debut last Saturday with a .333 batting average, 19-year-old Harper is in town for his first home game with the Nationals tonight. After an initial swing and a miss, Harper got back on his game and led the Killer Watts to victory. The Fighting Pandas never really had a chance; as the Washington Post‘s Adam Kilgore said, “He can smash line drives off fences, throw laser beams from the outfield, drive in clutch runs, crash into walls to steal doubles, face the press and boos without nerves and, if it is a day game, neatly smear about a quart of eye black on each cheek.” Just another day around the Mall…

Aviva Shen | | READ MORE

Aviva Shen is a reporter/blogger for ThinkProgress. Before joining CAP, Aviva interned and wrote for Smithsonian magazine, Salon, and New York.