A OF DECADE BRYCE HARPER

In the fall of 2005, Mitch Sokol got a call from his Las Vegas-based associate scout Glen Evans. There was a player he had to see.

There was only one drawback. The player was in the seventh grade. “I said, ‘Whoa, I mean, jeez, Glen, I don’t really go see seventh graders,’” said Sokol, the Nationals’ area scout for the Four Corners region and Las Vegas. “And he goes, ‘Just trust me. Come see this kid.’”

Bryce Harper was worth the trip.

Harper has been in the spotlight since his earliest teenage years. Baseball America highlighted him as “possibly the country’s best hitter” for his age when he was 12. Scouts labeled him a prodigy at 15, and he was dubbed “Baseball’s Chosen One” when he graced the cover of Sports Illustrated at 16.

When the Nationals selected Harper first overall in the 2010 draft, with Sokol as his signing scout, he