16 year old baseball prodigy dropping out of highschool to pursue MLB

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/bi...rt-Bryce-Harper-s-decision-to-?urn=mlb,170270

He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated recently.

He has 2 years of highschool left, but he's quitting to get a GED, go to college, and get drafted when he turns 18....

What are your thoughts?

 

good for him. we live in the age of the GED, and early graduation, etc. where as in years back it was just drop out and find some decent manual labor job. highschool is kinda pointless for the most part, except for getting into a college, but you can do that as easily and faster with a GED these days anyway. if SI puts anyone on thier cover, i say go for the money as soon as you can, because your just an accident or accusation away from never gettin a chance at the big bucks.

 

he's gonna get hurt before his 23rd birthday and have nothing to fall back on...

 

MLB isn’t the NFL; they have guaranteed contracts :cheers2:


Hotwater

 

I have a full diploma, I used credits by exam, and the GED to waive credits I felt I was wasting my time on.

objectively, I was.

my senior year of high school was two hours a week of classes.

I say, if he can do it, go for it, good luck, I hope he brings interest back to major league baseball, and saves it from financial ruin.

it's a good path, more people should take it. would save school districts money. and would change the job market in a good way.

 

Its the obvious and only choice.

I know a guy who was offered a top flight football contract at 17.
His mother refused to let him do it( Parents had to countersign in those days).
Told him he had to get a "proper job" and a uni degree.
25 years old he's wasting his life in shitty paid jobs.
Someone gets him a pro trial.Next year hes top scorer in BRITAIN.
Eventually gets enough money to buy a mansion.

Did ok.But couldve been a GREAT player.If he hadn't listened to his idiotic mother with pretentious ideas that football was "common" and "not a proper job".

No-one condemns parents who force their kids to play cello and shit like that at arts type schools.
Why shouldnt a top footballer etc play football?

 

I hope he breaks his arm..

 

too young - way too young. his body is far from being mature enough. and when he gets injured and i'm pretty sure he will at some point, the team will just go to one of its many many draft pick to replace him.

 

Focusing on his sports talent will enable him to maximize his potential. Dividing your focus up between two things is going to detract from your performance at both.

Good for the kid, I hope he's the next... Kaka of baseball.

 

He's a really big boy. He's also going college for 2 years while he waits to turn 18 and be eligible for the MLB draft.

He'll have an associates degree by the time he plays MLB, so it's not like he'll have nothing to fall back on. He'll have a GED and an associates.

I mean the kid hits 570 feet home runs(quite impressive even for a grown man) and pitches a 96 mph fast ball(quite impressive even for grown men), but the kicker is, not very many people in history could do both, at all. The kid is a rare rare specimen of talent, if you ask me.

 

i don't care for the talk about his schooling. thats a non issue. the issue here is the early specializing for sport - and yes, his numbers are impressive, but high level baseball is very very tough on the body, through a biomechanics way of thinking. he may be the rare one, but on the flip side he may be one of the many countless kids who have huge dreams of being a successful major leaguer to only have them crash down and be stuck playing triple A after a bad injury. thats my concern.

 

Assuming he’s not on the juice :toetap05:


Hotwater

 

The kids supposedly been a phenom since he was in the single digits, I'm pretty sure. Other sources talked about he's been groomed for this. But for that little "extra", I guess you never really know, huh?

I'd really like to think that we haven't come to the point that 15-16 year old kids are doing that on the regular......