Bryce Harper

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Laker Girls coming to Baseball. I'm IN for more viewing

Get the Lakers girls to dance in the foul territory at Miller Park, and I'll buy season tickets. I don't even live in Milwaukee.

I agree with Bryce, to an extent. I think there needs to be a little bit more "fun" to the game, without making it the spectacle that the NBA has become. Part of what makes minor league baseball so fun is the little nuances that are unique to each team and ballpark. I'd love to see more of that in the Majors.

When a home run gets hit in Milwaukee, Bernie slides down into a mug of beer (well, not really). And, we have the sausage races. Let's see more of the excitement that made this game The National Pastime!

[Snapolit1]

There are guys in baseball who you do not want to be on line grabbing a hot dog or a beer for . . you want to be in the seat watching every at bat. And you look ahead to see if he's batting next inning in timing your bathroom break. He is one of them. Ditto Trout. Ditto Cespedes. Ditto a hand full of other guys. That to me is the test that separates a star from an excellent player. Some of the "star" guys, i.e. Darryl Strawberry, Puig, ultimately don't have the career to back it up. I said it for years and stand by it: other than his farewell tour, no one around the country was buying tickets to see Derek Jeter play. Great great team player. Came though in the clutch remarkably in the post season. HOF material. No one ever bought a ticket in Cleveland or Detroit to see him play in June. Sometimes the big stars run their mouth a little much, i.e., Harvey, but these are the guys who put fannies in the seats, as Keith Hernandez would say.

Some guy is selling a Fidyrch autograph picture over on the other board. I read the Fidrych write up on Wikipedia. Damm, what a season that was. And what amazing fun. If he was around today I guess we would need to tell him to shut the hell up. Everything he'd be doing would be to "show up" the other team or somehow mock someone.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

There are guys in baseball who you do not want to be on line grabbing a hot dog or a beer for . . you want to be in the seat watching every at bat. And you look ahead to see if he's batting next inning in timing your bathroom break. He is one of them. Ditto Trout. Ditto Cespedes. Ditto a hand full of other guys. That to me is the test that separates a star from an excellent player. Some of the "star" guys, i.e. Darryl Strawberry, Puig, ultimately don't have the career to back it up. I said it for years and stand by it: other than his farewell tour, no one around the country was buying tickets to see Derek Jeter play. Great great team player. Came though in the clutch remarkably in the post season. HOF material. No one ever bought a ticket in Cleveland or Detroit to see him play in June. Sometimes the big stars run their mouth a little much, i.e., Harvey, but these are the guys who put fannies in the seats, as Keith Hernandez would say.

When we had Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun batting back to back between 2007 and 2011, a lot of bladders went unrelieved at Miller Park for exactly the reason you mentioned. You didn't want to miss a single one of their at bats, and there was no way you were taking a trip to the can if both guys were guaranteed to make it up to the plate in the home half of the inning. In five years, they combined to hit 361 home runs, and drove in 1,096 runs. The Brewers weren't always good, but every game, even the ones we lost, were fun because there was always a chance one or both of them were going to hit a 440 foot bomb.

[KingFisk]

Harper is an exciting player and not entirely wrong. It seems like he has been around forever, so sometimes it is hard to remember how young he is. As far as his comments, the answer probably lives somewhere in the middle of the new school vs. old school philosophies. Anyway, I am hoping he has a HOF career, so this contrived short print will help pay for the kid's college education.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Just bumping to note that Harper is now hitting .238. It seems the strategy of not giving him anything to hit for a while got to him mentally. I think the Cubs started that and other teams picked up on it.

[CMIZ5290]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Just bumping to note that Harper is now hitting .238. It seems the strategy of not giving him anything to hit for a while got to him mentally. I think the Cubs started that and other teams picked up on it.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy....

[Joshchisox08]

Not the biggest fan of Harper......... That said I believe he's the modern day version of A.J. Pierzynski. If he's on your team you love him, if he's not you hate him.

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Just bumping to note that Harper is now hitting .238. It seems the strategy of not giving him anything to hit for a while got to him mentally. I think the Cubs started that and other teams picked up on it.

Not to play devil's advocate but when I was his age, I made a ton of mistakes.

Mike Trout is benefiting greatly (IMO) from having Pujols around as a mentor...Harper, whether he'd be receptive to one or not, has never had another great hitter to learn from.

There are enough players in MLB that, if one disappoints me, I just move on to the next 'flavor of the week'.

There will always be some good, high-quality guys out there performing everyday like our opinions matter to them...and that's something to be thankful for.

I can enjoy a spectacular defensive play no matter who does it and no matter who they do it against.

Admittedly, it's a little harder to appreciate a bunch of home runs coming against your 'favorite' team (ex: this past weekend Dodgers doing it to the Braves).

I love a great pitchers' duel, though I do have my favorite pitchers and would prefer that they be the ones who come out on top.

There's a lot to like out there!


.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I blame Baker in part. When they started pitching around Harper with regularity, instead of leaving a slumping Zimmerman hitting behind him, he should have put Murphy there who is the leading hitter in baseball. Hard to pitch around a guy when a guy hitting .390 is next. He eventually did that but it took a long time. In the meantime Harper dropped like 100 points.