Bryce Harper Wants To Wear Pinstripes

If you're wondering who Bryce Harper is, he's the 16-year-old phenom that Sports Illustrated calls baseball's LeBron. He's just 16 but he's already reportedly hit a 502 ft homer at Tropican Field - the longest in the stadium's history, hit balls as far as 570 feet, throws a 96 MPH fastball, and is so fast that he's scored six times from second base on wild pitches.

Here's this week's cover of SI:

Tom Verducci wrote an article from Tom Verducci about Harper, here's some of the highlights:

Golf has Tiger Woods, basketball has LeBron James, hockey had Wayne Gretzky and military history had Alexander the Great, but baseball, like jazz, is a discipline that does not easily engender prodigies. Since 1967, only one player has hit a home run in the major leagues before his 19th birthday: Robin Yount of the '74 Milwaukee Brewers. The sport is so skill-specific that even the best, most physically mature young players typically must endure several levels of minor league apprenticeship to learn the game.

So good and so young is Bryce Harper, however, that he explodes baseball convention. He has hit the longest home run in the history of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, and he did so in January, at age 16, with a blast that would have flown farther than the measured 502 feet had it not smashed off the back wall of the dome. Still only 16, Harper stands 6'3", weighs 205 pounds, has faster bat speed than Mark McGwire in his prime and runs so fast that he scored on wild pitches six times this season from second base. As a catcher he picks off runners from his knees, and when he pitches, he throws a fastball that has been clocked at 96 mph. ...

... Harper has been compared to Justin Upton, Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr., each a freakishly advanced high school player and each the top overall pick of his draft. But Harper, say the baseball men who are paid to make such assessments, has the ability as a sophomore that the aforementioned trio had as seniors. That is why Harper—to his own approval—is best compared to James.

His goals?

"Be in the Hall of Fame, definitely," says Harper when asked by Verducci about his goals. "Play in Yankee Stadium. Play in the pinstripes. Be considered the greatest baseball player who ever lived. I can't wait"

Here's a video of Harper working out at the Yankees spring training complex this February, and in a home run derby at Tropicana Field - the day he hit the 502 foot blast: