Bryce the phenom, maybe not.....

[OaklandAsFan]

whopping 0 for 13 to start this AFL season. The saddest part is that IMO the pitching is weak this year. There have been some crazy scores the first week.

[legaleagle92481]

Its 13 at bats lets give the kid a couple of weeks before we write him off. It could be fatigue is starting to set in. He has probably never played as many games as he has this year.

[TNTtoys]

I remember Mets youngster Nick Evans starting off this year terribly. He was up and down from the minors to the majors from May through July and was 0 for his 1st 15 or 16 at bats. By July 7, he was hitting .000. He then began collecting a few odd hits but 1 month later, on August 6th, he was hitting in the .140s. Fast forward 3 weeks, and he was on .300 by the end of August.

Same thing happened with Lucas Duda. As a part-time player, he batted .292 with 10 HRs and 50 RBIs for the Mets this season in 100 games/301 at bats. After his first 42 at bats this season, he was batting .143 with no home runs and 4 RBIs.

Give this kid another few weeks... Some of the newer guys are slow starters.

[kylehess10]

I agree that there needs to be more time to see him play before jumping to conclusions that he's a fail.

Everyone needs to remember how much this kid has been through this year. It's his first year as a pro....he's probably never played this much baseball in his life, so you know he has to be tired right now.

[frikativ54]

If you haven't been mired in an 0 for 13 slump, odds are you haven't played pro ball. Bryce will figure things out; he's got all the talent in the world.

-Frik

[OaklandAsFan]

FYI guys it was said in jest. I know he will come around eventually. If anything its good that he is finally starting to struggle a little. He needs to be humbled a bit and learn to get himself out of a slump and emotionally get through it.

[coxfan]

I'm delighted to hear that political content's been deleted. Like many independents, I deplore the lack of respect that persons at both political extremes have for each other. We'll keep a positive focus here if we stay on topic. (And feel free to delete my post, as my second sentence is the only political statement I'll ever make on this forum.)

[MSpecht]

One of the best quores about young ballplayers ever. As manager Casey Stengel once put it so eloquently, when asked about his team's poor performance: "Our phenoms ain't phenomenating!"

Mike Jackitout7@aol.com

[freddiefreeman5]

Titans,
Your sig line is so strange. You blast Harper and yet you are looking for R. Palmerio items. That has to be the most confusing thing I have ever read on here.

Titans sig line :
"$$$ Top dollar paid for R. Palmeiro 1996-1998, 2004-2005 Orioles game used photomatched iems. Will pay RIDICULOUS prices for the right item.

Bryce Harper = ML BUST! Poor attitude. Should he investigated for steroids."

[OaklandAsFan]

I think the general consensus here is that Bryce has a crappy attitude, Raffy was always nice whenever I saw him. I scored dozens of graphs from him during his playing days (pretty much every time I asked he signed for me) and he also gave me a bat once just because I congratulated him on his 500 HR.

bad attitudes generally lead to people wanting you to fail and rooting against you.

Steroids or not you cannot call Raffy a ML bust, he had a great career in an era where its pretty well known at this point damn near everyone was doing it so you had to do it to even the playing field.

I used to be very vocal agains the steroid users but have just come to a point where I accept it for what it is, a black mark on the history of the game that hopefully has been cleaned up at this point. Steroid users will suffer due to that era and some players who may not have used may also suffer. The only people I really have issues with are people with bad attitudes and flat denial despite the mountains of evidence against them (Bonds, Clemens)