2026 MLB Home Run Derby: Breaking down the contestants - ESPN

The first time Dino Ebel ever saw Bryce Harper, the latter was a teenage prodigy with a ridiculously powerful swing that would soon land him on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

«You could see he was special,» said Ebel, now the third base coach for the Dodgers. «There was big hype around him.»

With all of the attention focused on Harper, Ebel gave him plenty of space that day and didn't introduce himself. But now they have competed against each other for years in the big leagues and, this spring, shared the same clubhouse as part of Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, with Ebel throwing to Harper regularly. Late last week, Harper texted Ebel and asked him to throw to him in the Home Run Derby.

It's an honor often pivotal to the outcome of the event, with the execution of the pitcher almost as important as the work of the slugger. Last year, Cal Raleigh and his father, Todd, won the event together, but sometimes fathers or friends can be overwhelmed by the din of the crowd, the extra layers of stands in the major league parks. Sometimes the major league coaches struggle to throw strikes because they're unaccustomed to not having a batting cage on the field.

Harper will soon club his 400th career homer, is on a Hall of Fame trajectory and won the Derby back in 2018 with the Nationals. But within the Derby context, Ebel is at least as accomplished as Harper: He pitched to Vladimir Guerrero Sr. when he won the event in 2007; Ebel was behind the L Screen when Albert Pujols won in 2015, and again when Teoscar Hernandez prevailed a couple of years ago. And Ebel was the guy lobbing perfect strikes when Kyle Schwarber won the swing-off to conclude last year's Derby.

Last week, Harper mentioned wistfully that he would not be