In three years, your kid may have a poster of Bryce Harper on his wall ... or not

Ever heard of Bryce Harper? Isn't he the kid in "Two And A Half Men"?

On the cover of its June 8 issue, Sports Illustrated calls him "Baseball's Chosen One" and "the most exciting prodigy since LeBron James."

It's a 16-year-old kid from Las Vegas High who, according to Tom Verducci's story, hits 500-foot home runs, throws 96 mph and "is more advanced than Alex Rodriguez or Ken Griffey Jr. at the same age." Or Sidd Fynch?

The story says he hit a home run 570 feet, as a 15-year-old. It left a divot in the dessert.

Harper, by the way, is the youngest high school athlete to ever be on the SI cover.

JINX.

We didn't say that out loud, did we. We're just looking at our stack of former SI issues and somehow picked up the March 20, 1978 issue of Clint Hurdle on the cover. That's back when we were playing high school basebal land believed we'd been apart of something special, ahead of the curve (if that expression was even around then) and alert to all that we should know about the future of the game.

Yes, the same Clint Hurdle who made news recently -- by finally being fired as the losing manager of the Colorado Rockies.

Adds Verducci on Harper: "Just about everyone in the baseball industry has known about Harper for at least two years. To a man they describe him as an impact player with the skills, body and attitude--he says he models his game after those of Mickey Mantle and Pete Rose--perfectly suited for the sport. 'If Bryce were in the draft this year,' says one American League scouting director, 'he'd go in the top five picks.' 'Wrong,' says a National League amateur scouting director. 'He'd go higher than that.' Higher than top five? 'Top two,' he says. 'And that's taking nothing away from the guys in the draft this year. He's honestly that good. He is a once-in-a-generation talent.' "