"I just want to help my team win, game in and game out, and nothing much else matters to me," Harper said in an interview with MLB Network shortly after the award was announced. "Being able to play in the town of D.C. and the city is pretty unbelievable."
Harper is the second youngest player to win the award, after New York Mets pitcher Dwight Gooden in 1984, who was one month younger.
"He really exceeded my expectations, the way he conducted himself in the clubhouse, the professionalism, the way he interacted with his teammates," Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo said last week. "As a young kid, he showed the maturity and the leadership to go out there and play every day. He was one of the mainstays of that team. He was an integral part of that team."
Mike Trout, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim's super rookie who is also a top contender for the AL Most Valuable Player Award, was unanimously named the AL Rookie of the Year. Trout and Harper were teammates, and became friends, on the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League last year, and both players will continue to be linked together.
A year ago, Harper was riding buses across the Northeast for Class A Hagerstown and Class AA Harrisburg, serving his time in the minor leagues with a $9.9 million contract in his pocket. This spring he was on the Nationals roster, contributing to a first-place team.
The Nationals turned to Harper in late April out of need, and he immediately injected life and spark into a then-punchless Washington offense. The cocky player that some feared would carry over from the minor leagues was gone; Harper blended into the Nationals clubhouse. He said all the right things, and on the field displayed a fiery, aggressive style of play. Harper played a strong center field and batted second for a first-place team, facing the pressures of performing for a contending team in a pennant race.
Despite missing the first month of the season and struggling through a mid-season slump, Harper played in 139 games and finished atop many major categories among NL rookies. He was second among NL rookies with 22 home runs, fourth with 59 RBI, tops in with 98 runs scored, second with 18 stolen bases, fourth with a .817 on-base plus slugging percentage and first with nine triples.
Most every game, Harper found a way to affect the contest, whether with his powerful swing or his strong throwing arm or aggressiveness on the base paths.
The future looks bright for Harper, who turned 20 in October. Since 1990, with most concentrated in recent years, four players who won the NL Rookie of the Year won the league's Most Valuable Player Award a few years after. Albert Pujols was the league's best rookie in 2001 and won the first of his three MVP awards in 2005. It took Ryan Braun, the 2007 NL Rookie of the Year, four years to earn both distinctions. Ryan Howard won the NL MVP in 2006, a year after being the best rookie. Buster Posey, perhaps the leading contender for this year's NL MVP, was the top rookie in 2010.
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