Hmm. I've never heard Harper's name associated with drugs, heavy drinking, drunk driving, or late night scuffles at bars. His flaw is he sometimes gets too intense at the park. Where do I get a team full of Harper's?
Dont people realize there are sports writers so jealous they would like nothing better than to take down a player like Harper? Sports writers are typically two time failures. They washed out as athletes. They washed out or never got a shot at serious journalism.
RJM - Nice dig on the writers. Your point on Harper re: conduct further underscores my comparison to LBJ. Jordan had significant gambling issues, Bryant had the Colorado rape case but both are held in higher esteem than James and the only charge ever pointed at him was he was a putz on the move to Miami. Otherwise the guy has been squeaky clean.
People can read into Harper anything they want about his approach/churlishness but until he is hauled in front of judge or does something outside the lines it is nitpicking him.
He has 3 years until Free Agency. During that time if there are 450 games played with 125 Homers, 350 RBI's and 300 Runs scored he might get $500 MM for a 10 year deal. Bump those numbers to 140, 400 and 330 and he will. Or he will get $250 for 5 and do it again when he is 31. He could become a billionaire.
Picture him in Yankee Stadium - he might push 700 HR's before it is over with good health.
In these debates the one thing I always find funny is that during the World Baseball Classic everyone talks about how much fun the Dominicans and other Latin teams seem to be having.
I have a hunch that I know Bryce better than most who are commenting.
His talent is off the charts, always has been. Other that that, he is the same as the rest of us, he has good qualities and bad qualities. Some of the good and the bad has been well documented. Some are better known by his current and past teammates and coaches. He is definitely going to be one of those guys that people love or hate.
I remember being a big Lebron fan at the beginning. Then not so much of a fan when he first left Cleveland. A few years back Nike became a major sponsor for PG. I got the opportunity to talk to some Nike execs including the one that first signed Lebron to a Nike contract. That is when I started learning about the real Lebron James and the things he does for others. And the way he lives and the things he believes in. I'm sure he also has strengths and weaknesses, but believe me, nobody should ever hate Lebron James. Not only has he been squeaky clean, he makes a difference in the lives of others. Especially those that grew up like him in poverty. He's not just a great athlete, he is a great man! Wish more people knew that.
I hope the new superstars in baseball follow in Lebron's path. And regards to hate... Well... I hate it!
luv baseball posted:
Picture him in Yankee Stadium - he might push 700 HR's before it is over with good health.
Please God... Let that be the case...
Bolts-Coach-PR posted:luv baseball posted:
Picture him in Yankee Stadium - he might push 700 HR's before it is over with good health.
Please God... Let that be the case...
HA! As a Mets fan - if he isn't coming to Queens out of DC is fine with me.
luv baseball posted:RJM - Nice dig on the writers. Your point on Harper re: conduct further underscores my comparison to LBJ. Jordan had significant gambling issues, Bryant had the Colorado rape case but both are held in higher esteem than James and the only charge ever pointed at him was he was a putz on the move to Miami. Otherwise the guy has been squeaky clean.
People can read into Harper anything they want about his approach/churlishness but until he is hauled in front of judge or does something outside the lines it is nitpicking him.
He has 3 years until Free Agency. During that time if there are 450 games played with 125 Homers, 350 RBI's and 300 Runs scored he might get $500 MM for a 10 year deal. Bump those numbers to 140, 400 and 330 and he will. Or he will get $250 for 5 and do it again when he is 31. He could become a billionaire.
Picture him in Yankee Stadium - he might push 700 HR's before it is over with good health.
Yankee stadium? Picture him in Minute Maid park with Correa and Springer hitting in front of him.
Just read the ESPN article. This paragraph caught my eye:
Harper played 120 to 140 games a year as a preteen and hit nearly every day with his dad, an upright, puglike man who spent decades swinging 300-pound bundles of rebar high above the Vegas Strip. "He'd get up at 2, at work by 4, work 'til 2 in the blazing heat and then walk in the door and say, 'OK, let's get the hittin' in,'" Bryce says. "He was never too tired."
Would love to see a chart of games played by age by MLB player.
Red Sox minority owner Tom Werner agrees with Bryce Harper ...
Asked about Bryce Harper 's comments to ESPN The Magazine that baseball is a tired game, Werner said, "I agree with Bryce on a couple points here, which is that it's really important that baseball has personalities. We live in a world in which sports competes with other forms of entertainment and personalities transcend the games sometimes.
Steve Buckley, Boston Herald
(He called Gossage part of baseball's shuffleboard set)
Buckley: Bryce Harper's criticism of baseball right on the money
In honor of Bryce Harper, I am going to take a moment to admire this paragraph - the way David Ortiz admires his home runs.
In honor of Bryce Harper, I am going to stop at the end of this paragraph to do a laptop-flip - the way Toronto Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista flipped his bat last October after hitting that decisive three-run dinger in Game 5 of the AL Division Series.
In honor of Bryce Harper, I am now going to take a moment to do a backflip - like St. Louis Cardinals legend Ozzie Smith used to do when he trotted out to shortstop at the start of each game.
(Twelve hours later, after trip to chiropractor . . .)
Those of us who love baseball, and those of you who used to love baseball, and those of you who are new to baseball, should be celebrating and applauding Bryce Harper for the valuable service he has performed.
The 23-year-old Washington Nationals star has called out Major League Baseball for its stodginess, telling ESPN The Magazine: "Baseball's tired. It's a tired sport, because you can't express yourself. You can't do what people in other sports do. I'm not saying baseball is, you know, boring or anything like that, but it's the excitement of the young guys who are coming into the game now who have flair. If that's Matt Harvey or Jacob deGrom or Manny Machado or Joc Pederson or Andrew McCutchen or Yasiel Puig - there's so many guys in the game now who are so much fun."
That's it, right there: Fun. Of our four major big league sports, only baseball - that is, baseball's godforsaken "code" - holds that its players should treat the creation of offense as a sad, solemn occasion.
Football players can spike the ball after a touchdown. Basketball players can chest-bump after a 3-pointer. Hockey players can stage an on-ice love-in after a goal has been scored. Yet baseball players are expected to hang their heads in shame after hitting a home run.
What Harper is telling us - teaching us, really - is that players should be allowed to bring their own unique personalities and sensibilities to the game. Babe Ruth did just that during the Roaring Twenties. Dizzy Dean did it in the 1930s. And Reggie Jackson was pimpin' his home runs before any of today's current big leaguers were even born.
Baseball needs more Babes, more Dizzys, more Reggies.
Baseball needs more Bryces.
Look, nobody's asking for little Brock Holt to do bat flips after hitting a home run, or for knuckleballer Steven Wright to blow the smoke from his imaginary six-shooter after registering a strikeout. That'd be like the violin player doing a triple-pump at the end of a Sinatra love song. We must understand our roles.
If you'd like to counter that Los Angeles Angels megastar Mike Trout doesn't feel the need to turn his at-bats into Vegas floor shows, I hear you. But that's entirely the point: Mike Trout is doing his thing. Just as Red Sox lefty David Price will be doing his thing this season when he brings his learned decorum (from following Tom Glavine and Greg Maddox) to each start.
But the guys who want their starlight to blind you, let them. It's their turn now. It's their opportunity - you might even call it their responsibility - to put their stamp on the game.
Some of the former players from back in the day will rattle their canes and squawk about how the kids are ruining baseball. We've already heard from Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage, who the other day told ESPN that the Jays' Bautista and Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes are a "disgrace to the game" because of the styling, the bat flips, blah, blah, blah.
This type of hollering from baseball's shuffleboard set isn't new. In fact, I remember once reading about another former player, who broke in before Gossage, saying that he, too, agonized over how the game had changed. With some help from John Thorn, Major League Baseball's historian, I was able to track down the name of this former player, who complained that "they don't play ball nowadays as they used to some eight or 10 years ago. I don't mean to say they don't play it as well. . . . But I mean that they don't play with the same kind of feelings or for the same objects they used to."
The former player who wrote that? His name was Pete O'Brien. He wrote it in 1868.
