Will Bryce Harper be LeBron James or Todd Marinovich?

Ron Harper announced earlier this week that his prodigious son, Bryce, will forego his final two years of high school eligibility to pursue a professional baseball career.

Bryce, 16, who was the first high school sophomore to be named a first team All-American by Baseball Americaand has been called “the Lebron James of baseball” by Sports Illustrated, will take classes at the College of Southern Nevada over the summer and receive his GED in the fall.

If everything goes as projected, Bryce would be eligible for the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft and most analysts predict that he will be selected with the first overall pick by the Washington Nationals.

Harper, a catcher who batted .626 with 14 home runs and 55 RBI’s in 2009 for the Las Vegas High School Wildcats, is an unquestioned physical marvel and he has a legitimate chance to flourish one day in the professional ranks.

Nevertheless, many skeptics have been critical of Bryce’s father for placing such an inordinate amount of pressure on his teenage son and for making a mockery of our nation’s educational system.

 

“There are going to be critics. I can’t worry about what people think,” Ron Harper said. “People are going to see what they want to see and say what they want to say. I think this prepares him for life, playing the game of baseball.”

The patriarch of the 6’3”, 205 lbs phenomenon continued to defend his decision and he assured his detractors that his son will be afforded with a quality education.

“People question your parenting and what you are doing. Honestly, we don’t think it’s that big a deal. He’s not leaving school to go work in a fast-food restaurant. Bryce is a good kid. He’s smart and he’s going to get his education.”

It is fair to presume that Bryce Harper will not be serving food to Walter, Donny and the Dude at an In-N-Out Burger location at any point in the future.

Few precocious athletes have ever garnered the attention that Bryce Harper has and some of his feats on the diamond have become things of legend.

Sports Illustrated wrote in their issue last week that Harper hit a 570 foot home run over “the right field fence, two trees, another fence, a sidewalk, five lanes of traffic on elevated South Hollywood Boulevard and yet another sidewalk, until it finally landed in the brown, undeveloped desert.”

Still, for every successful wunderkind like Lebron James, there are always sad stories of young athletes whose potential went awry.

For reference, one simply needs to recall names like Todd “Marijuana-vich” Marinovich and Jennifer “five-finger discount” Capriati.

Todd’s father, Marv, once said, “Some guys think the most important thing in life is their jobs, the stock market, whatever. To me, it was my kids. The question I asked myself was, ‘How well could a kid develop if you provided him with the perfect environment?’”

What is “the perfect environment?”

Hopefully, Bryce Harper will find it.

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Manny "The Destroyer" Pacquiao Will Never Destroy Miguel Cotto

Puerto Rican icon Miguel Cotto defeated Joshua Clottey via split decision to successfully defend his WBO welterweight title Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

In the first round, Cotto (34-1) landed a solid jab that floored Clottey (35-3) and the reigning champion seemed destined to easily control the contest in front of his many supporters who attended the card on the eve of the Puerto Rican Parade.

However, the entire bout was altered in the third round when Clottey, 32, accidentally head-butted Cotto, 28, and opened a severe laceration over the titleholders left eye.

With blood profusely flowing from his wound for the remainder of the fight, Cotto exhibited tremendous grit, determination and courage and he was able to battle and withstand Clottey’s relentless assaults despite his injury.

“Gutsy,” boxing promoter Bob Arum said of Cotto’s performance. “I think Clottey was very good. Cotto had to fight with adversity with that cut eye the whole fight. He could have taken the easy way out. I saw a lot of rounds where he couldn’t collect himself because the blood was running through his eye.”

If a boxer suffers an accidental injury and the pugilist’s corner or a ring doctor decides to put a halt to the fight, the contest can be sent to the scorecards and judged after five rounds.

Like a valiant warrior, the thought of escaping with such a flimsy victory was never a legitimate option that Cotto considered.

“I’m never going to use any excuses in any of my fights,” Cotto stated.

On the contrary, an incensed Clottey was readily prepared to utilize every excuse he could muster to rationalize his loss.

When the decision was announced, a distraught Clottey screamed, “Oh no! This can’t happen. That’s it, I quit, I’m done with boxing. I can’t take it anymore.”

When informed of “The Grand Master’s” comments, Arum told the native of Ghana that he had fought “a magnificent fight” and he urged him “to continue” his boxing career.

“I’m very, very upset,” Clottey continued to bellyache. “He’s (Cotto) hitting me with low blows. He picked me up and threw me down. He hit me behind the head. The referee is trying to protect him because he doesn’t want the Puerto Rican fans mad.”

Clottey later recanted his stated intention to retire and he claimed “the best thing that could make me happy is to get the rematch.”

Under normal circumstances, the savage war waged by Cotto and Clottey in Gotham would have fans demanding such a rematch.

Unfortunately for Clottey, another encounter between the two prizefighters does not seem likely to occur in the imminent future.

Arum watched the bloodbath ringside Saturday night with the current IBO and Ring MagazineLight Welterweight champion, Manny Pacquiao (49-3-2).

<!-- my page break -->“He (Manny) kind of hoped they’d stop the fight because he thought Cotto was going to be in big trouble and he was far enough on the scorecards to win a decision,” Arum revealed of a conversation he had with Pacquiao, 30.

Arum is determined to schedule a matchup between Pacquiao and Cotto for sometime in November.

“This showed me that Cotto and Pacquiao is a dead even fight,” Arum predicted. “I think it is a very competitive fight.”

Cotto, whose battered face resembled Reginald Denny’s, was not prepared to even mull his options in the immediate aftermath of his narrow victory.

“The people have to wait until I rest a little bit,” Cotto remarked of his future plans with entire sincerity. “I think it’s just rest now and after that I’ll talk to the company.”

Cotto is a genuine champion who deserves to enjoy an absence from the ring and the brutalities of “The Sweet Science.”

Last July at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Cotto suffered his first loss as a professional boxer to Antonio Margarito (37-6).

From the outset, the fight between Cotto and Margarito was extremely competitive.

But, eventually, the “Tijuana Tornado” wore Cotto down and pulverized him against the ropes until his corner was forced to throw in the towel.

Many boxing analysts believed that Cotto had finally met his match and that he lost to a more powerful and seasoned pugilist.

Those sentiments were proven to be unfounded when Margarito, 31, was exposed as a whispering eye this past January after he lost his WBA title to “Sugar” Shane Mosley by a 9^th round TKO.

Prior to the fight, controversy swirled when it was alleged that Margarito had an illegal plaster substance in his gloves.

In an effort to quiet the storm, Margarito was forced to rewrap his hands.

After his decisive loss to Mosley, boxing officials analyzed the evidence they found and declared that Margarito was guilty of devious, Mr. Fuji-like tactics, and they suspended him from the sport of boxing for a year.

In retrospect, it is safe to presume that Margarito cheated before and it is absolutely unfair to regard Cotto as anything except an unblemished champion.

<!-- my page break -->Manny Pacquiao is rated by Ring Magazine as the #1 pound-for-pound boxer in the world and there is no dispute that he is a spectacular talent.

Nevertheless, provided that the “Pac-Man” doesn’t steal a pink chapter from Margarito’s illicit book, one can easily reason that Cotto is a bigger human being and he will dispose of Pacquiao in a reasonable time when they ultimately square off.

No matter what, “The Destroyer” will never be able to destroy a brave and tough man the likes of Miguel Cotto.

Yankees Destroy Mets, Will They Defeat the Red Sox?

The New York Yankees destroyed the New York Metropolitans 15-0 Sunday in the Bronx to win two out of the three games played during this weekend’s first installment of the 2009 Subway Series.

The lopsided victory was the biggest blowout between the cross-town rivals since the inception of interleague league play in 1997 and it was the Bombers largest margin of victory since they defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 21-4 in 2007.

Yankees right-hander A.J. Burnett (5-3, 4.46 ERA) struck-out eight Mets batters and allowed only four singles in seven innings as the Bombers embarrassed their Queens counterpart

“I felt in sync the whole game. I was free out there,” said Burnett, 32. “I was just letting it go.”

On the flipside, Mets Ace and two-time Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana (8-4, 3.29 ERA) struggled mightily as he yielded nine earned runs in three horrid innings.

“Today was a terrible day and that's about it,” Santana, 30, conceded. “I didn't locate my fastball today the way it's supposed to be located.”

The Yanks sterling performance yesterday improved their overall record to 36-27 and it came less than one week after they were again massacred by the Red Sox (38-25) in Boston.

The Red Sox, who have prevailed in all eight of the meetings with their arch rivals this season, are currently two games ahead of the Yankees for first place in the American League East.

Interestingly, had the Yankees not opposed the Red Sox to date, New York would have a .655 winning percentage (36-19), in comparison to Boston’s .545 winning percentage (30-25), and they would hold a commanding 6-game lead in their division.

The Red Sox shire supremacy in direct competition versus the Bombers is genuinely confusing.

Do the Red Sox simply match-up against the Yankees in such a convincing fashion that they can dominate their nemeses over a prolonged, 8-game stretch?

Has Boston developed a decided psychological advantage over New York that the Bombers cannot overcome?

Have the Red Sox merely faced the Yankees at convenient times that have benefited Boston?

The Yankees and the Red Sox are scheduled to play 10 more games against one another before the end of this season.

Perhaps the Bombers will ultimately capture the AL East crown and the Red Sox will miss the playoffs entirely.

However, such a scenario seems very unlikely at this juncture.

If the Yankees want to win their 27th championship this postseason, they had better identify the root of the Red Sox command in their rivalry.

Provided that the Yankees don’t solve the riddle that is the Red Sox, expect the lights to go out early this October in “The City That Never Sleeps.”