Wake Up Call...

There was an interesting situation that took place in the Nation’s Capitol on Saturday. No there were no political upheavals that made major headlines or at least no more than usual. The situation that was so sensational involved Washington Senator slugger Bryce Harper.

While batting in the early innings on Saturday, Harper hit a tapper back to the St. Louis Cardinal pitcher who easily tossed the ball to the first baseman for the out.

Harper slowly trotted towards first base and about 25 feet short of the bag he peeled off and went to the Nationals dugout.

The lack of effort did not go unnoticed by Manager Matt Williams. Williams benched Harper and when asked after the game he stated that he can’t tolerate anyone not running it out to first base in any baseball game.

To his credit, Harper said that his Manager didn’t like the effort and he respected Williams’ decision. Of course, the sports people played the “what if” game when Harper’s replacement filed out with a chance to tie the game in the ninth inning. Asked how it affected the game Williams stood by his decision that lack of effort would not be tolerated.

I like what Williams did because he needs to send those messages to young, talented players who think they can mail it in. The message should be loud and clear to all of the Nationals not just Harper.

Baseball is one of those games where a player can go 2 for 3 one day and 0 for 5 the next. In the same game, the guy can make a couple of errors and still be in the game because he might get a hold of one and hit a home run.

Remember, the pitchers don’t have that luxury if they have a couple of bad innings.

Young, talented athletes seldom, if ever, get yanked out of a game the way Williams did it last weekend. These guys are typically the best player on their little league through college teams and may be the only player a coach can rely on to win a game. Because of this many of these guys are treated differently than the others and may get by with a little less effort maybe even miss a practice or two. At what point in time does any person in authority try to change an attitude?

A few years back, Seattle Manager Don Wakamatsu tried to make a point about the lack of effort he was getting from Chone Figgins. After an argument ensued, and pushing and shoving incident took place, one would think that management would stick by their manager for the poor attitude and lousy play of Figgins. But no, Wakamatsu was let go.

Figgins never did play very well for Seattle and his signing was very disruptive on several fronts, but the General Manager isn’t going to go out on a limb and admit to it. But he should have at least backed up the Manager for doing his best to put a winning lineup on the field. I know it is a fine line when it comes to veterans, but you could have asked any Mariner fan if they thought Figgins should have been let go or Wakamatsu and I’m sure Figgins would have been shown the door.

Bryce Harper is still a young guy who can learn a lot about playing the game of baseball from the former all-star third baseman, Matt Williams.

But in order for that to happen sometimes a guy just needs to have a wakeup call and hopefully for Harper that came last Saturday afternoon. If not, Harper will spend a lot of time watching his teammates playing baseball from the dugout.