Bryce Harper was exciting for fans in 2012 Major League regular season - MLB Feature Part 3
Bigger the hype a player generates, greater is the likelihood that he endures criticism as and when he declines. He will never have a free ride both at the time of his prime form and at the time of his slump. When he performs well he battles with the fear
that he may be unable to continue living up to the high expectations.
When he is perceived as an immortal force, he feels called upon to justify with the tag and even when he stands out in the matches, he is never satisfied.
While this helps in making continuous improvements, this can turn out to be counter-productive as well. This can prove to be the beginning of his downslide because maintaining the perfection to the satisfaction of the fans is not easy.
A little fall in the performance can cripple his confidence. As soon as his numbers dwindle, critics will jump out at him to make sure he feels like he was never a good player.
They will take such a heavy swipe at him that his capabilities as a baseball player will not be required and a more important characteristic to have at this time will be a proper attitude.
If that player can show level headedness and can abort the impact of the criticism from affecting his mindset, he can better analyse as to where he is lacking and what he requires to revert to his previous level of form.
Harper is going to confront such events many times in his career. The magnitude of fan-base that he has made now and the way media looks for stories about him, it is never easy for him to prevent off-field events from derailing his mindset.
As he starts another season as a Major Leaguer in 2013, his actions will be scanned. He will hardly have any moment to stay alone and away from reporters.
He cannot ignore the fact that in order to achieve greatness in baseball just having a talent cannot guarantee the success.
He cannot see his name listed among the most celebrated players of the game without exhibiting command in handling difficult situations and in treating them appropriately.
Billy Ripken, who is a studio analyst for MLB Network, has drawn a comparison between Harper and Mickey Mantle. He is of the view that both follow an almost similar approach when it comes to slamming big hits. As Harper has inspired the experts to pick out
players from the past to find similarities with him, he will be having a great responsibility on his shoulder to meet the level of the expectations.
“You look at Mick right here...that’s a pretty swing,” Ripken says. “Look at Bryce Harper, in full HD, swinging the lumber through the zone. You see the back foot slide on Mickey Mantle as he attacks the baseball? Bryce Harper does the same thing. It’s pretty
impressive. And then in fast motion, look at these two superior athletes attack, and look how they move forward a little bit. A little bit unconventional the way people want to teach it today, but both very similar in how they attack....”
During the season Harper escaped most of the situations without getting affected by them beyond a certain extent as he will be more sensitive next year.
Thus, he will be vulnerable to paying attention to the unnecessary events.
As a teenager, he barely took matters to heart. More often than not, he turned a blind eye to the issues which he will take seriously as he matures.
Harper did not immerse into the off-field happenings because he was too excited to contemplate anything other than baseball.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
Continued in Part 4
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