The Bench Jockeys

June 8, 2011 – On Monday June 6th, the Chosen One, Bryce Harper, who was selected #1 overall in the 2010 Major League Baseball draft by the Washington Nationals showed the Greensboro Grasshoppers and the rest of baseball fandom why he will be staying at Class A Hagerstown for the 2011 season. Although The Can’t Miss Kid is feasting on low Class A pitching, hitting .342 with 14 dingers and 42 RBI, he has struck out in over 20% of his at bats. But the Ks are not the reason he is being coddled; he is being held back because  he is still just a kid and he is just not ready for the ML spotlight.

Baseball has a several unwritten rules:

1. Opposing batters do not walk across the pitching mound on the way back to the dugout;
2. Hitters do not work the count or steal bases when you are creaming your opponent – just get the game over with;
3. If there is a brawl, all players must leave the bench and either engage or act like they are going to engage;
4. You don’t stand and admire your homers; and
5. You don’t blow a kiss at a pitcher who just served up a meatball.

On monday night, The Chosen One violated rules 4 and 5 within a span of 30 seconds. However, the Rook failed to consider Rule 6: If you violate any of the unwritten rules, there will be blood. (It may not be your blood, but you or someone on your team is going to get a ball in the ear.)

In Harper’s next at bat – two innings after the pucker he directed toward pitcher Zack Neal – Greensboro reliever Grant Dayton threw at the Harper, backing him off of the plate. Dayton missed him, but major league pitching won’t.

Greensboro is an affiliate of the Florida Marlins, an NL East foe of the Nats.  It may not be public, but I am reasonably certain that Harper now has a bounty in the minors and I would also speculate that there is an underground ‘plunk pool’ funded by the Grasshoppers.

It was two years ago today that Sports Illustrated ran a feature on Harper and his phenom-like potential.  Then-sixteen year old Harper declared, “I love the way people talk crap. I hear it all the time. Overrated. You suck. I’ll just do something to shut them up, like, I’ll show you. It’s like in regular pregame work. I like to show off my arm. Just so it’s like, There you go. Don’t even think about trying to run.” The Chosen One was anything but humble in adding, “I love showing up the older guys.”  That’s not going to earn him many points around the clubhouse.  Yes, he was only 16 at the time of the SI piece, but the last two years have not yielded much in the way of maturity. Having moxie is one thing, but acting like a d-bag is entirely a different can of fish.

Harper is not far from his days of leaving piles of empty bowls of Fruity Pebbles in his bedroom, but someone in the Nationals organization needs to take Harper aside and teach him what is expected of a major league ballplayer so that he can fill out the Nationals’ Uni with honor and integrity in 2012.  And while the Nats continue to mold him for the bigs, the Hagerstown Suns better school the Chosen One in some Matrix-like ball avoidance maneuvers because the idiotic warpaint, the newly-groomed porn moustache, and the overly-cocky MVP attitude all add up to a recipe for big game head-hunting for opposing pitchers.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2011 at 00:15 and is filed under Professional Sports, The Quick Hook. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.