It’s Bryce Harper Week in Charleston and, depending on your point of view, the timing is either awful or splendid.
It’s awful for those very few — are there any, really? — who live and die with the fortunes of the West Virginia Power, Charleston’s representative in the Class A South Atlantic League. The arrival Monday of the Hagerstown Suns for a five-night stand at Appalachian Power Park brings the precocious Harper, who, as the No. 1 pick in the 2010 amateur draft, was granted a five-year, $9.9 million contract by the Washington Nationals.
It’s awful to those few die-hards because the 18-year-old wunderkind, after a slow start to his professional career, has begun to feast on Sally League pitching in a manner befitting the ballyhoo and absurd expectations of a player whose potential seems to lie somewhere between Roy Hobbs and Babe Ruth.
In the Suns’ just-completed three-game series with Hickory in Hagerstown, Harper went 6-for-10 — two singles, two doubles and two home runs — with seven RBIs and seven runs scored. He also walked three times (and struck out once) and, for good measure, stole a base.
In other words, he’s on a bit of a roll, which could spell trouble for the Power faithful. On the bright side, all ye faithful, Hagerstown lost two of those three games to Hickory.
For the vast majority who don’t care whether the Power wins or loses, and come to the APP strictly for the atmosphere, the social interaction and, especially, the baseball, Harper’s recent hot streak is a blessing.
For the next five nights, we’re getting a rare glimpse of a player who, unless I miss my guess, or unless some tragedy befalls him, will be someday mentioned in the same breath as the Hall of Fame’s top shelf of prior generations — Cobb and Wagner, Ruth and Gehrig, Williams and DiMaggio, Mays and Mantle, Griffey and Bonds*.
At the risk of adding to the absurd expectations, yeah, I think he’ll be that good. I’ve never seen anyone with this kind of potential, and neither have you. There’s really no one to compare to Harper’s pre-professional baseball life. The closest you could come to an accurate comparison is the unworldly youthful development of basketball’s LeBron James, and we’ve seen how that’s turned out.
Every draft has it’s No. 1 pick, but none have been accompanied by the credentials of the 6-foot-3, 225-pound left-handed-swinging Las Vegas native. Yes, we knew No. 1 picks Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez could not help but be superstars, but even they have to be impressed with what Harper’s done so far.
The first thing to remember about Harper is his birthdate — Oct. 16, 1992. That would make him 18 years old. When he takes the field Monday night, he’ll be the youngest player on either roster, by a good year and a half. The vast majority of the players on the Suns and Power are in their early 20s, and most are in their second or third year of professional baseball, toiling away as they climb the minor-league ladder with their eyes on a chance at The Show.
Harper, had he lived a normal life, would be graduating high school next month.
It was his precociousness, of course, that brought him to this place at such a young age. The highlights:
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ONE WORD best describes Bryce Harper after his five-night stand in Charleston this week with the Hagerstown Suns:
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