MLB: Phenom Bryce Harper revisited

One year ago this week, Las Vegas High baseball phenom Bryce Harper was playing for Westmoore’s Red Dirt team, which plays in a state-wide wood-bat league.

On Monday, the 17-year-old Harper became the No. 1 pick in this year’s amateur draft. Harper skipped his last two years of high school, got his general equivalency degree (GED) and enrolled at the College of Southern Nevada rather than having to wait to become draft-eligible in 2011 as a high-school senior.

Harper became the first-ever junior college player to be drafted first and is expected to demand a contract with the Washington Nationals similar to the $15.1 million deal signed by pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who made his major-league debut with the Nationals on Tuesday night against Pittsburgh.

Harper appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated the week before coming to Oklahoma last spring. The magazine proclaimed him the LeBron James of baseball.

While Harper was in Oklahoma, he was lauded by teammates.

“He’s just a normal 16-year-old,” Westmoore first baseman Taylor Tipps said at the time. “He’s fun to be around.”

Tipps was Harper’s teammate three years ago on the Oklahoma Elite travel team. Harper resided at the Tipps’ house while in town last June.

“If you didn’t know any better, you’d have thought that kid has been with these guys their entire lives,” Westmoore coach Sean Brooks said of Harper. “He fits right in with our guys. He’s up on the rail with them, talking to the guys, picking them up. His skill level is above these guys, but it’s the same mentality, the same approach to the game. He fits right in with what we do.”

Tipps had warned teammates how good Harper was.

“People like to hear how good he is, but you don’t believe it until you see it,” Tipps said.

Westmoore third baseman/pitcher Mike Brewster was asked if there is an aspect of Harper’s game that needs work. Brewster smiled, shook his head and mumbled, “I don’t think so.”

Westmoore players hung out with Harper, ate lunch and watched movies. During one lunch, Harper signed autographs for kids at the local Chili’s.

“He’s pretty cool,” Brewster said.

Others recently have viewed Harper differently, however.

In April, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus said of the 6-foot-3, 205-pound Harper: “It’s impossible to find any talent evaluator who isn’t blown away by Harper’s ability on the field, but it’s equally difficult to find one who doesn’t genuinely dislike the kid. One scout called him among the worst amateur players he’s ever seen from a makeup standpoint, with top-of-the-scale arrogance, a disturbingly large sense of entitlement, and on-field behavior that includes taunting opponents. ‘He’s just a bad, bad guy,’ said one front-office official. ‘He’s basically the anti-Joe Mauer.’ ”