It appears that phenom Bryce Harper is bored with High School and needs to find a new challenge. Harper plans to obtain his GED and enroll in Junior College. The plan is to try and go pro within the next 1 or 2 years. Does he have it in him to become a resident of another country to become a free agent available to the highest bidder a’la Dice-K?
Story here….
Videos here…

In honor of Conan O’Brien making the Tonight Show funny again, I present one of my favorite skits.

Annointing someone as the “chosen one” can be a double edge sword. On one hand, it’s great exposure for the young man and on the other hand, it may be impossible to live up to the hype. We were right about Lebron as being the chosen one, he’s the best player in basketball. If we think about past “chosen one’s” in baseball, rarely did they live up to the hype and more often than not, performed well below average(see Brien Taylor and Todd VanPoppel).

There seems to be so many intangibles in baseball and the season are so long that chances are something will happen before a player is able to demonstrate their “chosen one” skills.

So the question is, does baseball lend itself to having a “chosen one” like the NBA with LeBron, the NHL with Bobby Crosby, and the PGA with Tiger Woods?

After throwing 13 innings and 201 pitches, Warroad pitcher Lars Anderson had enough Saturday night.With the Warriors’ Class 2A, Section 8 baseball playoff game against Thief River Falls tied 3-3 and a runner on second, Anderson slammed the book shut with one swing, improbably ending the most memorable game of his career with a walk-off home run.

We here at Hardballcoach.com are being overran with goodies. As we embark on our end of Spring cleaning, we decided to reward some of our new and loyal readers by giving away some of the great items that companies send us. All you have to do is register and post a comment to be eligible.
How to Join
All you need is a name, email, and some basic math skills. You must register to be eligible. Be assured that we hate spammers with a passion(we would love to take a maple bat …

An interesting piece over a The Baseball Analysts about the optimal speed difference between the fastball and changeup. Conventional wisdom is that you don’t want your change-up to be so close in speed to your fastball that it doesn’t fool the hitter. On the other hand, you don’t want there to be to great of a decrease in speed because the hitter has time to adjust. So what is the ideal speed difference?

Smooth, sleek, and powerful, the Pro Stix Maple 271 bat is identical in quality to the Easton bats used by more than 100 Major Leaguers. As the name implies, the bat is made of professional-grade hardwood maple–one of the strongest bat woods around. The durable material is generally more expensive than ash, but it pays off by holding up to far more at bats without sacrificing power. The black 29/32-inch handle, meanwhile, is notably comfortable regardless of how many hacks you take.

Gladwell identifies a concept he calls accumulative advantage. Accumulated advantage is basically a way to describe the advantages that better athletes gain simply by being better than the average player. Over time, this advantage increases (or accumulates) and allows the better athletes to outpace the average athletes.
Accumulative advantages begin at a young age. At those young ages, not a lot separates the good player from the average player. Those athletes identified as “better”, begin to see some attention that the average player doesn’t. These “better” players begin to be singled …

I had a chance to catch a replay of the “Kobe Doin’ Work” special on ESPN the other day and I found it fascinating. The show follows Kobe through a game and shows his bench discussions and adjustments he makes during the game. I don’t know a lot about Kobe but I do know that he is one of the top 2 players in the NBA. I was surprised how much initiative he took to tell his teammates what to do, how to better execute plays, and so on.  Kobe …