Scott Harper

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Scott Harper (born 1987) is a restaurant busboy in Armonk, New York. Harper was the subject of press attention when he jumped or fell from the Yankee Stadium upper deck during a baseball game.

1 Yankee Stadium incident
2 Conflicting claims by friends
3 Later news
4 Similar incident
5 References

[edit] Yankee Stadium incident

On August 9, 2005, during a game between the Yankees and the Chicago White Sox, Harper and friends attended and sat in Row A in the stadium's upper deck behind home plate. A horizontal safety net connects to the backstop and the front barrier of a middle deck of seats, which is in place to protect people sitting behind the plate at field level from being hit by foul balls.

During an eighth inning play, as Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter laid down a sacrifice bunt off a pitch from White Sox reliever Cliff Politte which advanced Tony Womack to second, Harper was seen to fall feet-first 40 feet into the net, punching a small hole through the material. A YES Network camera filming Jeter's bunt shook violently when Harper hit. Shaken, Harper sat on the net, his face buried in his hands. Players on the field and in the dugout watched the entire episode. Fans laughed and pointed, and some took photographs, but cheered when Harper collected his thoughts, stood, and walked up the net to the middle deck, where security guards helped him over. The game was delayed for four minutes. Harper was later wheeled out of Yankee Stadium on a gurney; his neck had been immobilized, and he was breathing through an oxygen mask. He was hospitalized overnight for observation.

The White Sox won the game 2-1, and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said Harper's fall was "the only exciting thing the happened today." The next day, August 10, Harper was pictured on the front of the New York Post. The picture showed Harper scooting away from the hole in the net, with the headline, "FALL GUY". Said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, "I've never seen anything like that before. I think that's New York, you know, anything can happen."

After hospitalization, Harper was arrested, and charged with reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct.[1]

[edit] Conflicting claims by friends

Harper's friends could not agree whether he deliberately jumped, and variously attributed dares to one friend, Mike Spadafino, and to other fans sitting nearby chanting "Sit or jump!" Spadafino said the last thing Harper said to him was, "Bro, I don't know, bro, should I do it?"

Spadafino, Rubicco, and Tripi were questioned by police, and denied on multiple occasions if they had talked Harper into jumping. Rubicco and Spadafino told the press they had no idea if Harper had been drinking. Rubicco also said, "It was just like a stupid dare."

The true story (as told by someone present), is that Scott Harper and his friends were sitting in row B. However, a few innings into the game, a fan sitting in row A left the game early, and Harper took his seat. Harper was now sitting next to 2 kids (both aged 20) whom he had never met before. They never exchanged names. Harper's friends told the kid sitting directly to his right (a kid often known as "The Tree Jar") that they were offering Harper a few hundred dollars to jump, and asked if the kid would contribute. The kid (legal name withheld) said he would add $20 to the fund. For the next hour or so, the kid Harper was sitting next to as well as Harper's friends continued to hound Harper to jump. The pot got up to $520. If Harper had just shut up, they would have stopped talking, but since Harper kept saying "okay, should I jump?" and similar quotes, they continued to tell him to jump and said things like "Either jump or sit!" During the 8th inning, Harper said to The Tree Jar "okay, i'm gonna go take a piss, and when I come back, I will jump." The Tree Jar did not believe him, as he had been saying this the entire game. He responded with "why don't you just piss on the way down?" Also, The Tree Jar had thought that maybe this joke had been going a little too far and too long, and that if Harper really tried to jump, he would grab him before he did. Well, the game finally got interesting, I believe Jeter had just gotten a hit, and Harper returned at a moment when no one was paying attention to him. He then launched himself over the rail. The Tree Jar was in a state of disbelief. He looked back at Harper's friend, both of them with their mouths wide open, and he then looked over the railing to see Harper in the net. The Tree Jar turned to his own friend and said "We've gotta get the hell out of here!" And so they ran, never to hear from Harper again. Also, although he tried, he never payed Harper the $20, and he feels bad about that.

[edit] Later news

Harper was subsequently pulled over by police and found to be under the influence of marijuana, as well as possessing a quantity in the car, for which he was arrested and released on bail.

On August 9, 2006, Harper pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment. Harper rejected a plea bargain involving probation and restitution. On September 19, he was sentenced to three years probation^[1] ^[2].

[edit] Similar incident

The incident was the second in five years. In May 2000, Stephen Laurenzi also fell onto the net during a game between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Unlike Harper, Laurenzi was knocked out for some time, but was taken to the hospital, and later arrested. Harper made headlines for his jump: he made the front page of the New York Post and was featured on Letterman's Top 10 things going through Harper's mind as he jumped.

Scott Harper, the 19-year-old baseball fan who jumped from the upper deck at Yankee Stadium onto the netting behind home plate last year, won't be repeating his act any time soon.

He recently pled guilty to reckless endangerment, was sentenced to three years probation and was banned for life from the ballpark by state Supreme Court Judge Troy Webber.

Harper plunged from about 40 feet onto the large net that stops foul balls from flying back into the stands -- and, as it turns out, stops falling fans from flying onto the field -- during the eighth inning of an Aug. 10, 2005, game against the Chicago White Sox. The game was delayed for four minutes before he returned to the stands.

He told three friends he was sitting with that he was going to test whether the net would hold his weight and then jumped, police said. The friends apparently made no attempt to dissuade him because they either weren't very good friends or were equally curious about the strength of the net.

After landing, Harper sat with his head in his hands for a few moments before climbing into the middle level of seats. He then was hoisted over the railing, led away by security, and treated to the kind of ovation that Alex Rodriguez often has dreamed of late at night