TicketsJune 2, 2011
By Shawn Sell
GoBEARCATS.com
It didn't take long for Josh Harrison to figure out that this was the real deal and that his dream was about to come true. Traditionally, minor league managers like to toy with their players before ultimately delivering the good news that they are being promoted. But on May 29th, Indianapolis Indians' chief Dean Treanor chose a different route with Harrison.
"It was on the last day of a road trip to Pawtucket and we had just lost 9-2," Harrison recounts. "I was at my locker taking off my shoes and the trainer said they wanted me in the manager's office. I walked in and he just had a big smile on his face and said `I am not going to mess with you, you are going up tomorrow.' They normally mess with people the first time they get called up and act like you are getting chewed out or something. But he just had a smile on his face and said he wasn't going to mess with me."
And so Harrison, the Cincinnati boy born and raised, was becoming a Major Leaguer. First a standout at Princeton High School and then an All-American at UC, Harrison's ascension through the minor leagues was now complete and just a day later he would be donning the uniform of the Pittsburgh Pirates for the first time. As exciting as it was for him, however, Harrison remained calm, unlike a particular family member.
"My mom was screaming," he says. "(But) I took it in stride; I had so much going on. I had to call my mom and my dad and my grandma and everything. I was more worried about letting them know that I got moved up then anything. It didn't really hit me until later that night and the next day when I got to the stadium."
The stadium where Harrison would head off to was Citi Field, just outside of New York City, and the home of the Mets, a far cry from the 12,500 seat Victory Field in Indianapolis. After sitting out his first day as a big leaguer, Harrison was thrust into the starting line-up for the first time on May 31st, batting second and playing third base. As was the case when he got the news of his promotion, Harrison played it cool in his opening game.
"Everybody kept asking me before the game if I was nervous and I wasn't," he says. "They were like `well, you will be.' But I never felt nervous at all, I was confident and it didn't get to me at all. I was put in a pretty big situation, but I felt good when the game started."
As if the challenge of being in the Majors wasn't enough, Harrison and company had to square off with Mets hurler R.A. Dickey, one of the few knuckleball pitchers in all of MLB and the first Harrison had ever faced.
"It was the first time I had faced a knuckleballer," he admits. "I got a little better once I was able to see a little bit of him. It definitely helped for later in the game."
After grounding out against Dickey in his first at-bat, Harrison picked up hit number one in the third inning with a single through the left side. Later, with Dickey still on the mound in the eighth, Harrison tied the game at one with an RBI single, before coming around to score in a 5-1 Pirates win. Game number two saw more of the same as Harrison picked up another RBI single one night later.
With the excitement of the first couple of games out of the way, Harrison says he plans to continuing working hard and hopes to stay with the big club for as long as possible. He could eventually meet up with fellow Bearcat alums and current Major Leaguers Kevin Youkilis and Tony Campana down the road, as the Pirates are scheduled to host Youkilis' Boston Red Sox June 24-26 and Campana's Chicago Cubs July 8-10. Even while playing out his dream as a big leaguer, Harrison is still mindful of where he came from and the support he has back in the Queen City.
"I just want to thank everybody (in Cincinnati) for all their support and the love," he says. "A lot of people have reached out to me and I haven't had a chance to say thanks to everybody because there are so many. But I just want to tell them thank you."