{"id":5686,"date":"2010-06-09T10:21:39","date_gmt":"2010-06-09T17:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=5686"},"modified":"2010-06-09T10:21:39","modified_gmt":"2010-06-09T17:21:39","slug":"bryce-harper-is-lucky-he-doesn%e2%80%99t-play-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/09\/bryce-harper-is-lucky-he-doesn%e2%80%99t-play-basketball\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryce Harper Is Lucky He Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Play Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Bud Selig is thrilled to do what David Stern hates: Announce a 17-year-old is the No. 1 pick<\/p><\/div>\n

What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the difference between Bryce Harper and Eric Bledsoe?<\/p>\n

Money. Lots of money.<\/p>\n

Harper is the 17-year-old phenom taken first in Monday night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s baseball draft<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0A latter day Mickey Mantle, Harper skipped the last two years of high school, was home schooled, got his GED and spent the past year at a junior college where 75% of the students are part-timers. When Bud Selig called his name first last night, there was no national outcry that this white teenage athlete\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life would be ruined because he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a college education. The only question asked is if Scott Boras can get Harper a bigger bonus than the $15.1 million the agent got for Stephen Strasberg<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Bledsoe is the 19-year-old point guard who declared for the draft after playing one year at Kentucky, now under investigation for Bldesoe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suspect high school transcript<\/a> and other assorted recruiting violations. Bledsoe, a black kid from Alabama, bounced from one high school to another in hopes of meeting NCAA requirements to he could do what he does best: play basketball. Unlike Harper, he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the option of going pro before he reached the age of 18.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The national media has been drooling over Harper for more than a year, eager to see how quickly the Sports Illustrated<\/a><\/em> cover boy<\/a> can reach the major leagues. Apparently, a college education is meaningless for a baseball player, yet essential for a basketball player. Just ask ESPN talking heads Dickie V or Digger Phelps or any of the predominantly white media who continually pine for the days when basketball players entertained us for the full four years.<\/p>\n

A 17-year baseball player jumps to the pros and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the second coming. A 19-year-old basketball player doing the same signals the end of civilization as we know it. \u00c2\u00a0The fact that most of the basketball players are you black kids looking to escape neighborhoods we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d rather not think about never enters the equation.<\/p>\n

We all know education argument is a sham, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop us from playing along. We love March Madness too much to insist these kids get the same opportunity that baseball players enjoy.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the NCAA baseball tournament bracket that Barack Obama fills out each year on ESPN. And no one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rushing to pay the NCAA $10.8 billion for the baseball tournament, the sum CBS and TNT just spent to secure the March Madness for the next 14 years.<\/p>\n

For that kind of money, you need the Eric Bledsoes and the John Walls and the Lance Stephensons on the court, with the occasional stop in a classroom to retain their eligibility. Preventing the kids from earning a living\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand forcing them to risk injury\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcomes in a distant second.<\/p>\n

So Bledsoe leaves his one-year sentence at Kentucky with his health, if not his reputation, intact and is expected to be a first round pick in this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s NBA draft. Wall, his Kentucky teammate, also finished his one-year term and is almost sure to be the No. 1 pick. Both should consider themselves lucky. The NBA is all but certain to make it two years before a player can apply for the draft when they negotiate the new players contract later this year.<\/p>\n

Hey, someone has to stand up for the value of education.<\/p>\n

Jon Pessah writes on the intersection of sports & culture. He is a regular contributor at TrueSlant (http:\/\/trueslant.com\/jonpessah<\/a>) and a founding Editor of ESPN The Magazine. He Tweets @jonpessah.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the difference between Bryce Harper and Eric Bledsoe? Money. Lots of money. Harper is the 17-year-old phenom taken first in Monday night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s baseball draft. \u00c2\u00a0A latter day Mickey Mantle, Harper skipped the last two years of high school, was home schooled, got his GED and spent the past year at a junior college where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":715,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8138,378,8147,8146,8140,700,8142,8149,5343,1371,8134,8139,1794,8133,8136,8137,685,6496,7518,8135],"class_list":["post-5686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-baseball-draft","tag-baseball-player","tag-basketball-player","tag-basketball-players","tag-bledsoe","tag-bud-selig","tag-college-education","tag-david-stern","tag-digger-phelps","tag-espn","tag-high-school-transcript","tag-lots-of-money","tag-mickey-mantle","tag-national-outcry","tag-ncaa-requirements","tag-part-timers","tag-phenom","tag-scott-boras","tag-strasberg","tag-teenage-athlete"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}