Remember me
Forgot your username/password?
 
Print
Home>Articles

Broken: The Natural

By Roel Torres
January 22, 2009

The Ride

Sometimes, my love for baseball makes it hard to look myself in the mirror.  I feel dirty.  I feel unclean.  I end up with those nagging, disturbing feelings that I have a hard time trying to identify.  Maybe Embarrassment?  Maybe Guilt?  Shame?  I don’t know.  It’s probably “All of the above.”  But that’s how I feel whenever I think about Bryce Harper swinging a bat.  That’s how I feel every time I think about him running the bases.  Or fielding a bunt.  Or making a throw to second.  Bryce Harper is a big problem for me.  And, to be honest, I think the problem is only going to get worse before it gets any better.  In fact, I know it will.  And I’m not sure there’s anything that you, or I, or anyone else in the world can do about it.  I am looking at the future, and the future looks bleak as hell, and we’re all impotent and powerless to change things as we strap ourselves in for the ride.

 

The Chat

I like Keith Law.  I like his approach to baseball analysis.  I don’t know the man personally, but I agree with a lot of the things he says.  He seems sane, reasonable, and thoughtful.  On Thursday, January 15, 2009, he held a chat on ESPN.com and fielded a question about Bryce Harper from one of his readers.  They wanted to know: 

 

Mark (Yonkers, NY): Who is Bryce Harper? What is his potential?

SportsNation Keith Law: #1 pick in the 2011 draft. Potential to be Joe Mauer with power.

 

Joe Mauer, as you probably know, was the first pick in the 2001 draft.  He’s an All-Star, a Silver Slugger winner, and a Gold Glove winner.  He’s the first catcher in American League history to win a batting title.  He’s also the first catcher in American League history to win a second batting title.  In fact, he’s the only catcher ever to lead the entire Major Leagues in batting average.  And, it looks like he’s just getting started, because he’s only twenty-five years old and he’s won two of the last three AL batting titles.

 

Keith Law – Harvard grad, former writer for Baseball Prospectus, former special assistant to the General Manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, member of Scouts Inc., and featured ESPN columnist – publicly compared Bryce Harper to Joe Mauer.  With power.  Which is crazy, because it’s such an outsized projection.

 

But I suppose it’s even crazier because Bryce Harper is only a fifteen year-old sophomore, still playing his games in high school. 

 

Too Young

In every society, there are individuals we protect because they are not old enough to protect themselves.  They are Too Young.  If a fifteen year-old boy stabs a man, he is not tried as an adult because the legal system has defined him as a minor, an individual who is not yet fully formed on an ethical level, and is therefore Too Young to suffer the full punishment of the law.  If a thirteen year-old girl sleeps with a drunken accountant, he is guilty of statutory rape regardless of whether she initiated things, or if the act was consensual, because society has determined that the girl is Too Young to make an educated and informed decision about her own sexual activity.  And so on.  If a nineteen year-old soldier comes back from Iraq, he can’t stop by the bar to have a drink.  You need to be sixteen to get your driver’s license.  You need to be eighteen to vote.  That’s how it works.  There are laws, there are regulations, and there are unformed, developing, defenseless members of society who we have all agreed to protect, who we have all agreed to classify as Too Young.    

 

How Bryce Harper fits into all of this is unclear, and probably up to the judgment of each of us as individuals.  But I have to confess – I’ve got some questions.  From where I stand, I don’t like the way things are shaping up.  From where I stand, I don’t like the way things are playing out.  And, worst of all, the end result of these realizations is that I’m not really sure that I like myself and the way I follow the sport of baseball.

 

The Scouting Reports

Keith Law is not the only person writing about Bryce Harper.  Nor is he the first to do so.

 

On June 16, 2008, writing for Baseball America, Dave Perkins wrote "To the dismay of every organization in baseball, Harper is only a freshman and won’t be draft eligible until 2011.  Harper is perhaps the finest high school prospect local scouts have ever seen.”

 

On August 8, 2008, Rob Neyer called Bryce Harper “…perhaps the best 15-year-old baseball player in America.”  He added “I don't pay much attention to amateur players because I have a hard enough time keeping the professionals straight. But every so often, some kid simply demands your attention, and apparently this kid is one of those.”

 

Neyer also added a link to Rich Lederer’s article for Baseball Analysts from August 7, 2008.  In his piece, Lederer said “I would be surprised if there is a player who rivals Harper's talent. Yes, I believe Harper just may be the most outstanding prep in the country right now.”  Lederer also attached a YouTube clip of the kid taking batting practice.

 

Keith Law, Rob Neyer, and Rich Lederer.  ESPN and Baseball America.  Good, solid, respectable sources.  So maybe this doesn’t strike you as disturbing.  Maybe you fail to see the problem with all of this.  You want to know, What’s the big deal?  Fair enough.  Before you make up your mind, let me cite one more piece.  Here are some direct quotes about Bryce Harper from the prominent prospects site, Perfectgame.org:

 

“The young 6th grader was by far the best prospect at the event. He hit two homeruns during the game and showed MLB average skills behind the plate.”

 

“…this young boy had something you can’t teach, he had a feel for the game that many lack even at the professional level. You knew he was going to be very special.”

 

“We would have had to give a 12 year old a 10.”

 

It takes some time for a couple of those quotes to sink it.  I mean, they’re talking about a twelve year-old.  A pre-teen.  A sixth grader.  And not only are they talking about him, they are saying that he “showed MLB average skills behind the plate” and that “he had a feel for the game that many lack even at the professional level.”

 

Twelve.  Years.  Old.

 

“He showed MLB average skills behind the plate.”  Look, I realize that’s the third time I’ve written the exact same sentence in the course of half a page. 

 

And, if you can figure out a better way for me to come to grips with it, you are certainly welcome to send me your suggestions.  I could definitely use the help.

 

The Pictures

I don’t know.  Sometimes a visual aid helps.  I don’t spend a lot of time interacting with twelve year-olds.  I don’t have kids.  I don’t have nephews, nor nieces.  I work in a Financial Office.  I don’t have access to a lot of sixth graders in my daily routine.  So I ran a simple Google Image Search for a “twelve year old boy” to help illustrate the point, to make the abstract concept feel a little more real. Here are four of the top hits for the search Twelve Year Old Boy: one, two, three, and four.

 

(Note: If you are skeptical – if you think I fanatically scoured the net then selectively handpicked the most effective images in order to achieve the most exploitative results – I encourage you to run the Google Image Search on your own.  I’m pretty confident that our results will look awfully similar.  End note.)

 

Those photos.  Those kids.  Do those boys look ready for hard scrutiny of the national baseball media?  Or do they look like they want to dress up like a Ninja Turtle for Halloween?  I know how I would answer that question.  Do they look prepared for the weight and expectations of major league scouts?  I mean, there are grown men who can’t handle those burdens.  It seems almost immoral to impose them on fragile creatures still peering at adulthood from the far end of their telescopes.

 

The Book

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

 

--Opening lines to Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, a novel about an adult male’s unhealthy fascination with a twelve year-old child.

 

The Process

One day, your voice changes.  One day, your face breaks out.  One day, you suddenly realize that you’re interested in girls and that cooties aren’t all that terrifying anymore.  It happens.  It happened to all of us.  We were all twelve years-old once.  Maybe a handful of years ago.  Maybe a handful of decades ago.  We all had to figure things out.  How to use deodorant.  How to use a razor.  How to talk to girls.  It’s not unique.  It’s universal.  But I would hope, for your sake, that while you were making that awkward transition from lower school to the start of middle school, the leading baseball publications of the day weren’t claiming that you were already showing MLB average skills behind the plate.

 

(That’s four times now.  Is it getting any easier for you to digest?  Nah, me either.)

 

The World We Live In

At the start of the essay, I said that things are going to get worse.  And I believe that to be true.  I know it probably sounds like the cry of an alarmist.  But I would argue that it’s the well-reasoned assessment of a realist.

 

In my day job at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, I work with Merce Crosas, who is the Project Director of the Dataverse Network.  Last week she told me her research indicated that the Library of Congress has 18 million books, 120 million items, and over 500 miles of shelving.  All of this adds up to around 11 terabytes of data. 

 

By comparison, as of 2003, there were approximately 160 terabytes of data on the worldwide web – over fourteen times greater than the scope of the world’s greatest library.

 

We live in an age exploding with information.  And history has shown that the flow of information moves in a singular direction.  We only gain more, we never have less.

 

Because of the constant stream of information that surrounds us all, my attempt to follow the sport of baseball force-feeds me facts that I did not request, pieces of trivia that I did not need.  I know that Barry Zito likes to surf.  That Bronson Arroyo likes grunge.  That Manny Ramirez enjoys watching cartoons.  That Alex Rodriguez is dating Madonna.  That Wade Boggs confessed to having a sex addiction.  That Kirby Puckett held his mistress as a hostage.  I know these things.  I don’t need to.  But I do.

 

And in today’s world, we are informed of talented fifteen year-old baseball players.  Amazing twelve year-old prospects.  And as momentum grows, and the wave of data grows and grows, we will learn more.  We will know more.  Whether we want to or not.  Tomorrow, it might be nine year-olds.  The day after?  Maybe five year-olds.  There will be scouting reports.  There will be blogs posting about the kid.  There will be YouTube videos showcasing their abilities and skills.  Like this one.  Or this one.  Or this one.

 

Things are going to get worse, my friend.  Not better.  Worse.

 

The Solution

I love the game of baseball.  I like learning about it, knowing it, understanding it.  I actively seek out information.  I follow ESPN, I read The Boston Globe and Baseball America, and I contribute to The Hardball Times and Bill James Online.  I think it’s important to be aware of young, promising players.  Players in the Majors like Travis Snider.  Players in the Minors like Mike Moustakas.  International players like Yu Darvish.  Players who are likely to be drafted like Steve Strasburg.  This is part of the depth and the richness to the game that make it so enjoyable.  The constant promise of hope.  The eternal cycle of youth.  Good young players are a wonderful part of the game.  They always have been, they always will be.

 

But I am not in control of the information flow.  I don’t set the limits.  I don’t draw the lines.  I don’t dictate what gets written, what gets revealed.  Listen, I don’t want to know about twelve year-olds who are graded against Major Leaguers.  Again, I don’t want to know about it – but I do.  There are things in life that once learned, are impossible to unlearn.  And as information grows more pervasive, as data becomes more democratized, as scouting grows deeper, and as my level of knowledge expands, I fear that I will slowly turn more and more into a monster who will figuratively cannibalize the young.  Eight year-old shortstops.  Three year-old lefthanders.  Embryos with superior genetic aptitude.  This is the natural evolution for the course we’re on.  Where does it stop?  Who’s to say that it stops at all? 

 

It’s possible that the only way for me to end this loop of self-destructive personal reprehensibility is to stop following the game with the same passion, devotion, and curiosity that I carry today.  Stop reading about baseball as much as I do, stop researching it as much, stop caring about it as much as I do today.  But – let’s be honest here – that may be a sacrifice I’ll never be selfless enough to make.  These are the compromises we make when we try to find ways to live with ourselves and the great, glorious, hyper-connected world we’ve built.  Welcome to the Digital Age.  Welcome to the Age of Information.  That way madness lies. 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have any thoughts you want to share, I would love to hear from you.  I can be contacted at roeltorres@post.harvard.edu.  Thank you.

 
 

COMMENTS (18 Comments, most recent shown first)

RoelTorres
Hi THBR,

Actually, to paraphrase the Serenity Prayer, I think that there is a lot of wisdom that comes from recognizing our own limitations, accepting that there are some problems that we can't solve easily, and that there are some conflicts we are powerless to change. So your comments are probably wiser than you give yourself credit for.

I will reiterate the point that I am happy these response posts create an engaged and involved interaction. It's validating when the readers feel that there is extra value in the post-essay discussion, beyond the original piece itself.

In terms of my dilemma, at this point, I am aware that I have a growing unease with the voracious coverage of the media. That's not their fault -- their job is to provide information, to find scoops, to report newsworthy stories. In the end, it's caveat emptor. It's up to me to find a way to navigate this new world of informational access that we live in. And just because I haven't resolved this yet, doesn't mean there isn't an sensible answer out there. I intend to keep thinking about the issue. And I intend to keep looking for some ideal solution. If I ever figure it out, you can be certain that I won't hesitate to write about it and share it with anyone who might be interested.

Thanks for your comments.
11:24 PM Jan 28th
 
THBR
Excellent, intriguing, thoughtful article -- and the same about the responses. My own reaction is that your sense of ... discernment? taste? integrity? prevents you from accepting this because it is, in the final analysis, unacceptable. YOU can't do anything about the news media slide into (what I would call) perversion, but at the same time you don't want to give up a lifelong source of joy and fascination, namely baseball, just to demonstrate your disgust. I have no solution, but I want to congratulate you and the responders for a fine discussion. I too am uneasy, and I too have an old man's viewpoint, because I AM an old man (just turned 60). Unfortunately, I don't have an old man's wisdom ....
1:01 PM Jan 28th
 
RoelTorres
Hi Tim,

I was just talking to my brother about this yesterday. I said to him: "I have no problem with the criticism I receive on Bill James Online, because it is generally very thoughtful and intelligent." I also said, "because I am not a baseball analyst who looks as statistical studies and comes up with a conclusion, there is a far greater degree of ambiguity in my conclusions." So it's really not that difficult for me to listen to criticism. If anything, it indicates to me that people are reading my essays, thinking about the points I make, and care enough to take the time to write about it. All of these are good signs, and I am grateful and appreciative for all of it, even if there is some disagreement there.

The nice thing about reader responses and criticisms is that even thought my essays start as monologues, they always evolve into educated conversations. And I would much rather write an imperfect essay that generates spirited dialogue, than a technically perfect one that everyone ignores.

There is a lot of collective, benevolent wisdom to the Bill James Online readership. It would only be to my detriment to disregard it. Especially since they share if so generously and freely.
12:50 PM Jan 25th
 
timconnelly
Great responses, Roel!

This was by far my least favorite article by you. For some reason it failed to move me close enough to the problem to really see it. I saw you as making a mountain out of a molehill. But your follow ups have done an outstanding job of making me see your point and to realize that it's perfectly valid.

I want to compliment you on being able to accept criticism without it making you defensive, on trying to recognize the valid points of that criticism and this is very important- to have given your subject enough thought to where you can both defend your original position (meaning you didn't just throw something down without giving it any thought) and see ways of using the thoughts of other people to further the wisdom of your position.
12:23 PM Jan 25th
 
RoelTorres
Hi Tim,

No, of course we shouldn't consider ending our interest as baseball fans. Instead, I wonder if I should stop following baseball with the same degree of fanaticism that I do. The information available to me today has increased exponentially from the amount of information available when I was a kid. The advent of the internet in my lifetime has dramatically changed my exposure to players at all levels. Twenty years ago, I would not have known who the best prospect in Single-A was. Now? I can pull up the full rosters of every Single-A team in existence, look at their stats, compute the park factors, and take their age into account. My curiosity is no longer bounded by the limits of available information. Instead, I have to define my own limits internally, because the external world has opened up and allowed all the possibilities.

Because I love baseball, I want to know about it. But because of the information explosion, there is far too much that can be discovered now. Almost everything can be reasonably researched and investigated. And with the democratization of the media -- through blogs and YouTube -- there are far more opportunities to broadcast and publicize obscure causes, whether they are deserving or not.

I'll pull two of the quotes from your response: "I do see a major difference between 15 and 12," and "By the time a girl is 9- we may already know she's pretty. But I think the obvious lack of development will prevent us from coronating her as the new next super model." Yes, I would have also thought the "obvious lack of development would prevent us from coronating" 12 year-olds as being "MLB-average." But clearly, it hasn't. And when I read that, it took me by surprise. It shocked me, to be honest. And I had a very visceral reaction.

I guess what I'm saying is: your logic and my logic dictate that we should not consider 9 year-olds super models. However, our logic does not constrain the actions of the media. And what happens if the media decides to go ahead and coronate a 9 year-old as a super model? And I keep reading about it everywhere? Then it puts me into a dilemma because the sources of information I rely on are feeding me pieces of knowledge I did not want to receive.

All I know is -- as we speak, today, 12 year-old boys are being described as MLB average. And personally, I don't want to be part of the process of scouting 12 year-old boys because of my own internal discomfort with the whole situation. But I'm not sure how to remove myself from the loop yet also find a way to stay as informed as I currently am.

It's true that there are "far more evil things to feel ashamed about- like child abuse or discrimination." But I don't feel ashamed of those things because I do not actively seek them out, participate in them, or perpetuate them. I have no internal dilemma about child abuse and discrimination because I consistently oppose them. But judging and assessing 12 year-olds? At the moment, as we speak, apparently that is a part of my world. And if Perfectgame.org chooses to judge and assess players even younger than twelve, I want to be prepared for the possibility.

Thanks for your comments. Appreciated, as always.

11:49 AM Jan 25th
 
timconnelly
I do see a major difference between 15 and 12. But your feeling that we're inevitably going to keep moving towards a younger and younger age is exaggerated. By the time a girl is 9- we may already know she's pretty. But I think the obvious lack of development will prevent us from coronating her as the new "next super model." Lebron at 15 showed enough talent to makes everybody comfortable jumping on the bandwagon. Lebron at 12- I don't think so. Or at least to the degree that it was going to do irreparable harm to him.

I'm not really sure that we've moved downward in age to any considerable degree in the 40 odd years that I've been a sports fan. There were teenage tennis prodigies like Maureen Connolly in the 50's. Chris Evert was even younger in the early 70's but don't you think it's an individual thing that makes a person flame out? Was Jennifer C's life that much worse than the vast majority of her classmates or did we simply have a convenient thing to blame all her problems on?

I guess my problem with your article here is I believe it takes something that could be a problem- and it takes it way out of context. Yes, we need to keep an eye on how much attention we give to our youth. Yes, we need to be sure not to create a fantastic amount of pressure on them. But life is presssure. Some kids can't handle the pressure of a high school baseball game. Some kids perform far worse on tests than what their knowledge would indicate. In many ways, putting pressure on kids allows them to achieve their potential. For every kid it breaks, their's another kid who needed the motivation.

With so many far more evil things to feel ashamed about- like child abuse or discrimination- I think you've placed far too great a concern on a problem that needs to be monitored but the quotes you've provided us about Bryce Harper don't reasonably mean we need to consider no longer being baseball fans.
9:11 AM Jan 25th
 
RoelTorres
Hi tiller88,

Thanks for your thoughts. It's true that there have always been, and there will always be a list of talented individuals whose abilities far exceed their years. And, yes, we absolutely should encourage them to excel to the best of their abilities. I suppose a good deal of my caution revolved around the notion of what we should consider healthy in nurturing and developing an unformed adolescent psyche.

For all the examples of success you have highlighted, there are countless others who flamed out because they found fame and fortune on the global stage well before they were mature enough to handle the accompanying praise and adulation. I am happy for those who persevered and succeeded. I am distraught for those who were poorly served by being thrust involuntarily inyo the merciless meat grinder of the public spotlight. A Jennifer Capriati. A Todd Marinovich. A Dana Plato -- or any of another dozen child actors who ended up poorly formed and unprepared to handle the real world when they crossed over into adulthood.

I am in favor of young talents shining to the best of their abilities. But I remain far from convinced that it is to their benefit for the national media to predict their inevitable superstardom before they get out of sixth grade.
5:47 PM Jan 24th
 
RoelTorres
Hi jollydodger,

I agree with your early points. I agree that the coverage is excessive. And I agree that the comparisons are asinine. But I don't have the internal ability to hear the expert opinions then simply label them as silly, nor dismiss them. Instead, I find myself intrigued and fascinated.

Fpr better of worse, I don't consider the opinions of Baseball America, Keith Law, Rob Neyer, and Rich Lederer to be silly, frivolous, nor negligible. Instead, I find them all to be knowledgeable, I give them all credence, and I often take heed. Which, I guess, is a factor in my dilemma.
5:37 PM Jan 24th
 
RoelTorres
Hi Tim,

Thanks for your thoughts. I hear and understand a lot of what you say. But I wonder if that's because you focused most of your analysis on 15 year-olds? For some reason, and I'm not sure I can articulate why, I am far more comfortable with the idea of looking at 15 year-olds and assessing their potential and development than I am with 12 year-olds.

For the sake of argument, let's say I agree with you and concede that it's okay to take stock of a 15-year old and determine their potential and their ability. Is there a point where a) the individual is too young? And b) the expectations are too great? I think that's part of the dilemma for me -- where do we draw the line? What is perfectly normal and what is wildly inappropriate?

If 15 is okay, then is 12? If 12 is okay, then is 9? If 9 is okay, then is 5? Or 3? Or 1? What is a reasonable projection? We can say that a 2 year-old is smart for her age, but would it be fair to claim "that little girl is probably going to grow up to be one of the world's leading hematologists?" A 3 year-old may be cute, but is it a little absurd to say "she looks like she's going to be one of the most beautiful supermodels in the world?"

Mind you, these are rhetorical questions I am throwing out. To be honest, it seems that the readers have a more secure grasp of their comfort levels with age and prodigious ability. In many ways, this has been comforting. I asked the readers to help me with my internal dilemma. And you have all been kind enough to respond. As I've said before -- often the most valuable insights come from the reader responses, and this is a constant learning process for me.
5:32 PM Jan 24th
 
tiller88
Roel,

If I may, I'd like to offer some counterbalance for you. So, Bryce Harper appears to be a baseball prodigy. The fact that he was first "discovered" (if that's the proper term) at 12 years old is nothing new, and certainly not confined to the arena of sports. Mozart was composing successfully in 1761, when he was a little over five years old. William James Sidis, at eleven years old, was the youngest person ever to enroll at your alma mater, back in 1909. Jackie Cooper, in 1931 at the age of nine, was the youngest actor ever nominated for an Academy Award. William Cullen Bryant, in 1804 at the age of ten, published his first book. John Everett Millais, enrolled in England's Royal Academy as a painter in 1840 at age eleven. The list of prodigies in various fields of arts and sciences is much too long to continue posting in this context, but these examples from various fields that go back over the centuries show that the discovery of talented youth in any discipline is far from new or even unusual.

Why, then, should we be taken aback when a youth who displays prodigious talent in catching, throwing, and hitting a baseball? I think, rather, he should have the same opportunity to develop that talent to the greatest possible extent just as many of the well known historical prodigies from the fields of art, science, music, etc. Further, we should be thrilled for him, while hoping his support network can prevent advantage being taken of him - publicity is a double edged sword, to be sure. I would find it far more troubling to learn an unscrupulous agent somehow undermined his projected ascent to the majors than to read about talent evaluators making that projection. Such evaluations have been made for centuries.

9:15 AM Jan 24th
 
jollydodger
Coverage is excessive, yes. Comparisons are assinine, yes. Its silly, and it is dismissed. The End.
12:16 AM Jan 24th
 
timconnelly
I'm not sure I really see the problem with a 15 year old getting a lot of atention for their potential. By the time Lebron James was 15- everyone knew he was headed for the NBA- the only question was how great of a player would he be. I mean- anyone would be effected by all the attention he gets but from all indications- it hasn't made him a sorry excuse for a human being. In fact, I see a number of very admirable traits in Lebron.

There have been 15 year olds nominated for Academy Awards. There have been 15 year old Olympic champions. There have been 15 year old Dalai Lama's. There have been 15 year old kings and queens. Some times all the attention can ruin someone- usually when they've earned it they're about as good at handling it as an adult. The reason for that is a person's values, their ambitions and their world view are already well in place by the time they reach 15.

I guarantee that by the time you were 15- you were getting a lot of attention for your academic abilities. If it wasn't as much as Bryce Harper- well, it's all relative. You had classmates who were jealous of all the attention you got. Should we try and distribute the amount of accolades that are divvied out in some kind of equal fashion? I played Little League for 3 years and Pony League for 2 more- I'm still looking for my first home run. Hitting 2 home runs in a game doesn't make you Barry Bonds but if all these people think this kid is a great prospect- he probably is.

It's an amazing thing about Lebron. You know what he lacks that Kobe and Michael had? He simply doesn't have the same kind of body control that they had. He plays with amazing power but despite all the hype surrounding him- he doesn't have anywhere near the same talent base that they had. So a large part of his greatness lies in his work ethic. That's the last thing in the world you would expect from somebody who's been told since he was in junior high that he could be the best ever.

It's possible that Bryce Harper will become spoiled or lose all his confidence because it's too much- too soon. But you know what: the attention ultimately would be revealing a flaw that needed to be worked on- it wouldn't be the cause of it. And it's just as likely that it will drive him to become as great a player as he can possibly be.
10:05 PM Jan 23rd
 
RoelTorres
Hi Sean,

Thank you for your thoughtful invitation! I suspect you're right in that I would worry less if I consistently viewed the world through an ironic lens! But, uh... what would I write about then?

Seriously, though, let me borrow a page from your book and quote some poetry I studied back in school. As Whitman said in section 51 of "Song of Myself" -- "Do I contradict myself?/Very well then, I contradict myself,/(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

There are times when my sensibilities are decidedly older. And there are times when my sensibilities are far more youthful. But it seems that my essays are more successful capturing specific aspects of my personality than its entirety. Maybe I find it more interesting to write about the pieces of baseball that confuse and confound me? It's certainly possible,
5:17 PM Jan 23rd
 
SeanKates
Roel,

You seem to be a young man with old man sensibilities. I invite you to enjoy the life of a young man with young sensibilities, where everything is OK, and can be enjoyed as either a joke or arch-ironically. Sure, it's not TERRIBLY rewarding, but it makes you worry less.

:)
4:22 PM Jan 23rd
 
RoelTorres
Hi Sean,

Both you and Evan have offered up very thoughtful and reasonable responses. But there is still something troublesome to me about scouting 12 year-olds. I concede that it's possible that I am overly sensitive to the issue, and that there is nothing inappropriate at work here. You are both correct in pointing out that this has always gone on, and we have always recognized talented youngsters. So then I wonder what has triggered my response in the case of Bryce Harper? Maybe it was emphatic nature of Perfectgame.org's rhetoric?

The things you guys have said are true and seem relatively innocuous. So it leaves me to question why I am so bothered in this instance. I suspect it is connected on some primordial level to the phenomenon of watching Jon Benet Ramsey participating in those junior beauty pageants, you know -- the projection of adult behaviors on unsuspecting children.

But in this case, maybe I'm overreacting by several orders of magnitude. I don't know. I guess I'm still trying to work it out.

Thanks guys. Both comments have certainly led me to give the issue more thought.
10:35 AM Jan 23rd
 
demedici
I don't really have a problem knowing about prodigies in anything, even sports, so long as the comparisons end at the sideline. OJ Mayo has been known to basketball aficianados since at least 8th grade, and likely earlier for the real hardcore. By the latter part of his high school years, we were hearing how bad a person he was, bragging about his skills and showing off. He was, in other words, a 16 year old kid.

Now that he's gone through his (NBA mandated) year in college and in the pros, he's a "glowing personality" who understands how to play the game correctly, and respects those around him. He didn't change. He grew up. Early reports about skill are one thing, and I don't think they're to be ashamed of. Early reports that class a kid as "troublesome," "lazy," or "not driven" are more worrisome, but can easily be avoided or ignored.

Information shouldn't be feared or make you embarrassed; it should be waded through and broken down into good and bad. Kids have or do not have certain talents. Having prodigious talents is going to get you noticed, and usually for the better. I agree with evan that we can push kids too hard and too narrowly, but we should also work hard to differentiate between information gathered from that abuse and the abuse itself. And we should never infer the abuse just BECAUSE of the talent at such a young age.

Long and rambly, I know, but the point can be shortened and sharpened to: The Information Age has never been evil. It isn't even good. People strive for knowledge and then impart it to the rest of the world. We are the filters and the moral compass. Sure, knowing which 12 year old has the highest percentage chance of becoming Albert Pujols might be as useless as a list of the 37 best movies which contain decapitations, but I'm glad both are out there.
9:56 AM Jan 23rd
 
RoelTorres
Hi evan,

Thanks for your thoughts. Normally, I like to offer responses in proportional length to the reader's original comments. But in this case, I don't really have much to add, except to say that I agree with what you wrote and I think you said it well.
9:56 AM Jan 23rd
 
evanecurb
Roel:

I understand your point about the information explosion and the access to it. We truly live in an age of excess data. But this has been a problem for a long time. I first remember hearing about Alonzo Mourning when he was a 14 or 15 year old, and he was an Olympian at age 17. I first read about Tiger Woods when he was 13 or thereabouts, and he played in a tour event (LA Open?) at age 15 or 16. Peggy Fleming was in the '64 Olympics at age 15 (she came in 6th I think). The point is that, on a few rare occasions, athletes can have abilities comparable to professionals at a very early age, and of course it gets reported. I am not really interested in what 12 year olds or younger are doing, but as you say, it's unavoidable. What am I trying to say here? Not sure, only that, I believe the media reporting of these very young athletes is probably a very small part of the problem. The big problem in my mind is that these kids are pushed so hard by adults at such very young ages, and that so many parents spend so much time and effort trying to make their child into the next Tiger Woods or the next Mary Lou Retton. It's yet another example of how unbalanced our society's emphasis on sports has become.
1:10 AM Jan 23rd
 
 
©2024 Be Jolly, Inc. All Rights Reserved.|Powered by Sports Info Solutions|Terms & Conditions|Privacy Policy