Photo used with permission from MissChatter, who is at Spring Training, check out her flickrstream. Get well-wishes to her camera too.

For the love of Bryce Harper – The Washington Post Magazine
Here it is, the Sunday magazine Bryce Harper profile by Dave Shenin, that has been hyped for a while now. For the second consecutive year, the Washington Nationals have a prospect coming off as too good to be true. Harper love baseball, comes from a good family, has a “blue collar work ethic” (BTW, what is a white collar work ethic?) and seems free of problems that can bring down so many other prodigies. Of course, he’s only beginning to see the temptation that money and fame can bring, but then again, he grew up in Las Vegas and seems to have not be caught up in the allure.

The day before the Post magazine story arrived on people’s doorsteps, Harper was demoted to the A-Hagerstown Suns (The Post) which is probably as good a time as any. He knew it was coming, but was still crestfallen, having never not made a team before. Harper was hitting .389 in limited action in major league camp.

I have to wonder how Shenin is going to fit this into a book. I just assume he is writing one about last year’s phenom, Stephen Strasburg, but that story changed when Strasburg tore his UCL and needed Tommy John surgery. Does Shenin write separate books for the two or combine them into one. We shall see.

By the way, Thomas Boswell is chatting at 11.