Jonathan Papelbon has been suspended for the remainder of the season, but that doesn’t mean Washington Nationals superstar Bryce Harper will go the rest of the season without having a teammate’s hand at his throat.
On Thursday night, Harper and Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer created a buzz on social media when Scherzer jokingly choked Harper as part of a pregame handshake.
The knee-jerk reaction would be to assume Scherzer and Harper were mocking the infamous incident from last weekend when Papelbon choked Harper during a fight in the dugout. You can see that video here.
However, Chris Cwik of Big League Stew pointed out that Scherzer and Harper have actually ended their handshakes with fake chokes for a while now, for whatever reason. This tweet from early September is proof of that:
Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer have an interesting pre-game greeting/ritual. (via AP's Alex Brandon.) pic.twitter.com/G3kDAChF3p
— James Wagner (@JamesWagnerWP) September 6, 2015
Does that mean Scherzer and Harper didn’t know how the handshake would be perceived now? Probably not. I’m sure they were playing into the hype on some level.
